Kathleen Grey and the Goblet of Fire
by Taki-Sama101
Summary: Kathleen Grey is excepted into Hogwarts...four years late, when she arrives she has to play catch-up and while she is making good progress in school she is excepted to participate in the Tri-Wizard Tournament and all the while she discovers the twists and turns in the truth of her heritage. R&R please! The more you Review, the more i write! Rated M for future gore.
1. We Are Pleased to Inform you,

I think I kinda like you.

A Harry Potter Fan-Fiction

Disclaimer: I Do not own Harry Potter or its Characters or settings, those are owned by J.K. Rowling. (only the main character is mine)

Kathleen Grey stared at the piece of parchment in her hand, her eyes scanning it over and over again and as each word sank in her eyes became wider.

_Dear Kathleen Grey, _

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31. _

_Yours sincerely, _

_Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress _

Kathleen shuffled the parchments so she could read the second page.

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry _

_UNIFORM First-year students will require: sets of plain work robes (black) plain pointed hat (black) for day wear pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar) winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings) Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags. _

_COURSE BOOKS ( All students should have a copy of each of the following): _

_The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1-5) by Miranda Goshawk _

_A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot _

_Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling _

_A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch _

_One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore _

_Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger _

_Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander _

_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble _

_OTHER EQUIPMENT _

_1 wand 1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) 1 set glass or crystal phials 1 telescope 1 set brass scales _

_Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad. _

_PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS._

Her father, who was standing over her let out a sigh.

"This has to be a prank." Kathleen said folding up the piece of paper and leaning back on the couch of their two bedroom, second story, run down New York apartment. She and her father were in the business of magic tricks, her father being a magician, and she his assistant. She was sure someone had dropped the letter off to make fun of them, most people did, they put on great performances but it didn't stop people from teasing the widower Magician and his daughter.

"I would agree with you, if I didn't know that it was real." Her father said going over to the owl that had delivered the letter and stroked its breast feathers making the bird trill and click its beak happily.

"What do you mean?" Kathleen asked looking at the envelope the paper had come in.

Her father let out a sigh. "your great, great, great grandfather got the same letter a long time ago, it's been passed down for a while, I still have it somewhere, probably still packed up. Said he was a wizard of some sorts, unfortunately, Magic hasn't been seen in our family since, save for the last few generations of Magicians, but that's just illusions and tricks."

Kathleen stared at her Father, he had no reason to lie to her. "And you didn't think about sharing this information because…?" she asked raising her eyebrows.

"Didn't feel the need, I didn't think anyone in our family would ever get the letter again, while we waited for it, it didn't come to any of us, until now I guess. Though no offence, you haven't really shown any real magical properties. " he said taking the letter from her and reading it over to make sure he didn't miss anything. "But I suppose this Professor Dumbledore feels different." He frowned trying to think where he heard the name.

Kathleen sighed and took the parchment back reading over everything she needed. "…Well…I hope they don't mind if I bring a tiger instead of cat…I suppose it counts."

"You want to bring Mittens? I thought you would have wanted to bring something a little less….big." her Father said with a raised eyebrow.

"He's still a cub, so I figured it would be fine for a year since I still have to train him to jump through a hoop…" she said with a shrug as if it were normal, she loved her little tiger cub, he father gave him to her a month ago as a present, he figured she herself would be a magician someday and needed her own tiger to bond to since her father's tiger Jacob never listened to her commands.

"Or, you just want to bring him cause you don't want to leave him alone with me and Jacob." Her Father said with a chuckle.

"you men are bad influences on my little cub." She said going back to the parchment. "okay…they said they will be waiting for my owl….I don't have an owl…how am I supposed to reply?"

"they sent one, just send it back with a reply…"

"oh…right. So…what about my books and stuff, where and I supposed to get those?" she said

"hang on, I might be able to find some of your grandfather's old books." Her father said leaving the living room and disappearing into his bedroom to dig through a few unpacked boxes.

While her father was looking for her great grandfathers old things, Kathleen pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and began writing back to Professor McGonagall.

_Dear, Professor McGonagall._

_I am happy to have received your letter, and I am sending this one in reply. Thank you for accepting me into Hogwarts, I am looking forward to seeing it this coming fall. though, as I do not have a normal cat, I was wondering if I would be allowed to bring my Tiger, Mittens, he is still a cub, and is well trained since he performs in my father's Magic act, we are a family of magicians, it's a tradition thing since my very great grandfather once attended Hogwarts_.

_I hope this letter reaches you soon, I don't want to show up to school with an unauthorized pet and get in trouble. I figured since he was still a type of cat it would be fine, you know as long as he doesn't try to eat anyone. Also, how do I get to Hogwarts?_

_Oh and one more thing, I am nearly sixteen now, so…I don't know if that's the normal age for 'first-years' or this letter just arrived late, if it did arrive late, does that mean I have to stay longer than most or are there extra classes?_

_Sincerely, Kathleen Grey._

Kathleen read over her letter and sighed, it would have to do. She folded it up and put the name of the school on the front with Professor McGonagall's name on the front and held it out to the owl who took it with a soft hoot and flew back out the window and off into the distance.

Just as the owl took off, Kathleen's father walked back into the room with a stack of old books in his arms and a slim white stick that was nearly as long as Kathleen's forearm.

"Is guessing that is my grandfathers wand?" she asked taking the books and the wand from her father. She set the books down and examined the wand, when she shifted it around to fit her hand properly and warm feeling ran through her and it just felt right to hold the smooth wood in her hands.

"yeah, there was a piece of paper next to it, it's supposed to be made out of a white Birch tree branch and is infused with a dragon heartstring. You know the more we talk about this the crazier it sounds…but at the same time I guess it explains a lot about the family line of magicians." Her father said scratching his chin. "Anyway though, we better get you some new clothing...I am glad my father held on to all of Granddad's old school things but you'll need more then that if you're going away for a bit."

Kathleen nodded, she was glad she and her father were successful Magicians or she would have to settle for her old things, the only reason they lived in a rundown apartment was so they didn't have to waste so much money on rent in the more high class places. They were slowly fixing it up though so they didn't have to live in a complete dump.

It was about three weeks later that Kathleen received a letter back from Professor McGonagall, she read the letter and smiled in relief.

_Dear, Kathleen Grey._

_A tiger is a little extreme for a familiar, but I suppose if you are bonded to Mittens, you may bring him. As for getting to Hogwarts, I realize that you are in the United States and as Hogwarts is located in Europe, Professor Dumbledore will be arriving at your house on August 31st at Seven o' Clock, through means of Floo powder, so I do hope your home has a fireplace. _

_And yes we have seen that your letter of admission had arrived a few years late, we were not aware of your magical abilities until recently, it could be caused by the fact that you live farther away, or your magic is just now showing itself a little later than most. You will still be placed in fifth year, but you will have extra classes with each of your assigned teachers in order to catch up, this will be helpful since the Ordinary Wizarding Level tests (O.W.L.'s) are required to be taken by all fifth years. Also you will have to be sorted with the rest of the first years, I do hope you are placed in my house, Gryffindor, from your letter I can tell you would be a fine addition._

_Yours sincerely, _

_Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress _

When August 31st rolled around Kathleen was sitting in the dining room eating Tacos with her father. They had been a little quiet this evening, not sure what to say to each other. It was Six-thirty in the afternoon and Kathleen's bags were sitting beside the couch in the living room and Mittens was stretched out beside her feet. She had gone to her living grandmothers farm to pick him up the day before, since they couldn't have the tigers in the city her grandmother had offered to keep them at her farm outside of town and they could pick them up whenever they needed the big cats.

Kathleen sighed as she finished her third Taco. "Well, Professor Dumbledore should be here soon…" she mused looking at the clock.

Her father nodded. "got everything packed? Books, robes, toothbrush…" he asked thinking of the things she would need off the top of his head.

"Yeah, and my wand is in my inner pocket of my suitcase." She told him giving him a small smile as she stood from the table and gathered their plates to do the dishes one last time before she had to leave.

When Seven o' clock rolled around Kathleen was leaned back into the sofa watching T.V. , she never really watched it, except when her favorite show was on, right now she was zoned into a new episode of Doctor Who. She loved the show for its pure imagination and perspective on Time.

As soon as the clock flicked from Six-Fifty Nine to Seven there the fireplace flared with green fire that made Kathleen jump and Mittens (who had been sitting beside her) to growl and caused the fur on the back of his neck to raise.

Her father came running into the living room only to find a tall old wizard stepping into his living room from the hearth of the fireplace. He had on velvet purple robes with gold trim and a matching pointed hat, he also had an extremely long beard that fell towards his belt and long silver hair to match. His eyes were bright electric blue and his face was very kindly, but wrinkled in a graceful manner to indicate that he was very old.

"Please forgive me if I startled you, I am Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I have come to pick up Kathleen Grey if she is ready." He said with a kind smile on his face, his eyes twinkled with amusement as they fell upon Kathleen and Mittens. "so I assume that, that is Mittens your familiar? Minerva told me about your letter and your request to bring him. He will be most welcome, and might stir a little curiosity among the other students."

Kathleen liked him already. "Thank you sir, And I am very ready to be on my way to Hogwarts, I have been waiting anxiously for the past month for this." She said standing up and smiling back at the elderly man. She reminded her of her late Grandpa Eric.

Dumbledore nodded and looked at Kathleen's Father who was standing infront of the T.V. looking a little sad and nervous. "Don't worry Mr. Grey your daughter with be safe in our hands, and you will see her during Christmas time and on Summer break. I assure you we will take good care of her, just like she was our own child." He held out his hand for Kathleen's father to shake.

"I am sure you will, I'm just a big worry wart when it comes to my Daughter, and please, Mr. Grey was my father, you can call me Jack." He said taking the old man's hand and shaking it before releasing it to pull Kathleen into a hug. "now you behave and I want to see letters at least once a week…you might be fifteen, but to me you will always be my little one, and I always want to know what you're up to. Whether it be mischief or a lazy day I want to know." Jack said ruffling her hair

"don't worry dad, I will write. And stop messing up my hair, you always do after I brush it."

Dumbledore waited patiently while father and daughter said their goodbyes and then he gently lead Kathleen into the fireplace with Mittens in her arms.

With one final look around the apartment Kathleen and Dumbledore vanished in a flash of green fire. For a few seconds Kathleen felt herself being pulled here and there and felt as if she was spinning extremely fast until she suddenly stopped and stumbled out of a fireplace into the middle of a large office with shelves that held books and small trinkets and the walls were covered in pictures. She looked down at Mittens as he shuffled in her arms, the experience must have made him a little uncomfortable, as it had been for her.

"It's okay Mittens, I think we are here, so no more fireplace jumping for us…for a while I hope." She reassured the Tiger cub as Dumbledore stepped out of the fireplace behind her.

"Welcome to Hogwarts Miss Grey, I will call a house elf to show you to your temporary room until you can be sorted into a house and you can put your things down and get comfortable. I suppose since you have already eaten you would like to go to bed early, or rest a little. If you want any snacks feel free to ask one of the house elves, and they will bring you whatever you wish to eat for tonight, tomorrow you may take a tour of the school and get used to our surroundings, I would go with you but myself and the other teachers will be busy preparing for the other students that will be arriving tomorrow night. If you ask for a House elf named Dobby I am sure he would love to accompany you around the castle, or perhaps one of the other students would take you, there are a few already here that I had to pick up as well that might be wandering around the castle. " Dumbledore said snapping his fingers so a house elf appeared beside him. He leaned down and whispered his instructions to the small creature which waddled over to Kathleen and bowed. "enjoy your stay Kathleen, I know your Great, Great, Great, Grandfather certainly enjoyed his. "

Kathleen smiled at the house elf and the old man, she should have been surprised to the small creature, but for some reason it just felt right to see it. She set Mittens down beside her and held onto his leash as the House elf took her hand and lead her to the door. "Thank you sir, I am certain I will enjoy it here." She said before the door shut behind her.


	2. Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

**I think I kinda like you.**

**A Harry Potter Fan-Fiction**

**Disclaimer: I Do not own Harry Potter or its Characters or settings, those are owned by J.K. Rowling. (only the main character is mine)**

**I also decided not to make this fifth year, but forth year instead because I want to do the Yule ball and the tri-wizard tournament. So ignore any statements about fifth year and O.W.L's in the last chapter. ((I want to do something for the Yule ball.)) **

**Also I will be writing in both Kathleen's and Draco's perspective in the following chapters so look out for the perspective changes, I put their names in bold to signal the change, but if it doesn't show up that way…then I don't know keep a good eye out. **

**Chapter 2: Double, Double, Toil and Trouble…**

**Kathleen** groaned as she rolled out of bed and slammed onto the cold floor below, she heard a muffled growl as Mittens jumped up from his sleeping spot beside her bed, dodging her body as it nearly hit him.

"sorry boy…I was having a good dream..didn't see the falling part coming.." she mumbled standing up and stretching waving at the other students that were already awake and staring at her and her Familiar, they had done enough staring at her last night to last her a life time but she supposed they didn't think it was enough.

She opened one of her suitcases and pulled out some clothing for that day and made her way towards the girls bathroom that was next to the temporary sleeping quarters. When she was refreshed and dressed she was met by another house elf who bowed Deeply.

"hello Misses Grey, Professor Dumbledore sent Dobby to escort you through the castle, so you wouldn't be lost in the near future." Dobby said bowing low again. "I know you will love the castle, there is so much to see." He continued excitedly his wide tennis ball shaped eyes looking up at her as he waited for her to speak.

"thank you Dobby, I would love a tour of the castle…but I don't suppose I could get some breakfast first? Oh and call me Kathleen, it feels weird to be called by my last name." she said with a small smile to the house elf, causing him to grin wider.

"Yes…Kathleen…Dobby would be delighted to get you breakfast." The little house elf said taking Kathleen's hand and pulled her along the corridors and stairways to the kitchens where Kathleen could grab something to eat before he took her around the rest of the school telling her various things including something about a boy named Harry but she didn't pay attention to much.

By the time Kathleen had eaten Breakfast and lunch and finished the tour with Dobby it was about time for her to make her way to McGonagall's office before she met up with the first years. Dobby lead her through a few more corridors before he stopped infront of McGonagall's office door. He turned and bowed to Kathleen.

"Dobby must go now to the kitchens to prepare dinner for the students." He said before popping out of her sight.

Kathleen sighed and knocked on the door. When she heard the quick 'come in' from behind the door she opened it. she smiled when she saw the elderly woman smiling back at her.

"oh, hello Kathleen, nice to finely meet the face behind the letters. Now, we don't have much time to get acquainted further, so we might as well head to the front hall before the first years get there. I am going to have you sorted last after the rest of them so we can get the first years out of the way." Professor McGonagall said gathering her wand and a piece of parchment before leading Kathleen out of her office and down the corridors towards the entrance hall.

As they were walking, well fast walking anyway, they past one of the teachers, he was dressed in completely black robes that covered his entire physique save for his face and greasy black hair. He stared at Kathleen with pure black eyes that pierced her and made her shift to the other side of McGonagall. Though she had only seen him for a moment before they rounded the corner, he had made her nervous and she let out a little shiver he reminded her of a snake. And she hated snakes.

"That was professor Severus Snape, he is head of Slytherin house and the potions teacher here at Hogwarts." McGonagall explained just as they reached the entrance hall before Kathleen could think ask her anything else.

It didn't take long to calm down the first years and lead them into the Great Hall. Kathleen gasped when she saw it, and was particularly interested by the ceiling. Even when they stopped she was still staring at the night sky above her head dotted with stars and the floating candles. She couldn't help but smile, she knew she would love it here, so much magic around her, it seemed to energize her and fill her with a warm fuzzy feeling, something that she would have described as a crush if it had been a boy she was staring at. But even through the feeling she couldn't help but shake another one...it was as if she was being stared at, and when she took the time to rip her eyes away from the ceiling, she found out that was exactly what was happening.

She hadn't thought that her presence among the first years would cause her to gain the attention of a good majority of students. They all stared at her mature figure that towered over the little first years, she figured it was because she looked so much older and was standing in the middle of the isles waiting to be sorted with them. She blushed bright red and let her red-gold hair fall infront of her face to hide her blush from her watchers. But even her attempts to hide failed when the last first year ran up and was sorted into Hufflepuff.

McGonagall called her name and just before she was sorted Dumbledore stood up.

"Students, I would like you to welcome Kathleen Grey, now under unusual circumstances, Kathleen is joining us a little later than usual as a fifth year, so please treat her as if she has been with you for the last five years and make her feel welcome, like a first year this is all very new to her." He said staring at her gently behind his half moon spectacles.

Kathleen mouthed a quick 'thank you' and sat down on the stool and looked at the ground trying to pretend she didn't have any eyes on her. She listened to the hat as it whispered to her.

"_Hm…you have a very intelligent and powerful mind, and very brave I see…I haven't had someone this difficult to place since five years ago…Hm…difficult…let's see…"_

There was a long pause and Kathleen gripped the edge of her seat and nearly fainted as the hat opened its mouth and screamed out her house name.

"SLYTHRIN!"

Kathleen stood shaking from her seat and made her way towards the cheering table at the far wall of the Great Hall. She sat down between two girls who scooted over for her. Just what she needed, to be thrown into a pit of snakes. she looked up at the teachers table and saw McGonagall looking at her with a sad smile and she just shrugged and looked down at her empty gold plate before taking a chance to look at the occupants at her table.

That's when she saw the pair of steel blue eyes locked on her. He was quite handsome, a prince, in a way his hair was white blonde and his skin was fair. She shook her head mentally, he wasn't a prince, he looked like and angel. Immediately her mind began to wander, and she remembered a certain song that could have described him perfectly, but she couldn't remember the name. she did remember one line though and she played it though her head. _'He's the devil in disguise, a snake with blue eyes…' _her emerald green eyes locked with his and the more she looked the more the phrase made sense.

After a few more moment both she and the boy ripped their eyes away from one another, only for Kathleen to run her eyes across the room and lock her eyes with another set of green ones. This boy looked a little less prince like and more heroic. His hair was black and messy as if he just woke up and his eyes were as green as hers. He had a scar on his forehead and his skin was a little darker than the other boys. Also he didn't give her a cold analyzing look, instead he looked a little shocked and curious at the same time, he looked at her as if he had seen a ghost and then brushed it off as something else. He raised his hand a little as if to wave to her and she did the same wishing she could go over and talk to him he seemed nicer then the people at the table she was sitting at, in fact she already heard most of their conversations and was completely sure that the raven haired boy's table was much nicer. But McGonagall had already explained to her that on the first and last days of school all students were required to sit at their house tables.

Kathleen was distracted with the other table and it's friendly face that she hadn't noticed that food had appeared until she was shoved in the shoulder by a first year.

"Oi! Could you pass the damn salt already." He hissed and was shocked when Kathleen's nervous face turned harsh and she slammed the salt infront of him, still not registering that the food had appeared out of nowhere.

"Fine, here is the 'damn salt' you stupid little bastard." She yelled loudly, she might have been nervous, but hey, she was an American that had been raised in New York, if you were rude to her, she would be a bitch to you. Even after she had said it she didn't notice the large group of people staring at her in shock and the people over at the Gryffindor table laughing, until it was too late, her face turned red but she smiled when she saw the Raven Haired boy laughing as well. The blue eyed snake on the other hand was staring at her with a small amusement planted on his marble smooth face.

Dumbledore couldn't hide his amused smile and McGonagall had placed a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. But the one called Snape glided over and stood behind Kathleen who had ducked down.

"Is there a problem…" Snape said in a low, soft, threatening voice. He narrowed his eyes when both Kathleen and the first year shook their head. "Good, I would hate to have to give out detentions on the first day." He said in a quiet hiss before gliding back to the teachers table.

Kathleen slipped under the covers of her new bed, it had been hell making her way through the dungeons, she didn't get lost since she was following the group of Slytherin students, it was just the statues of snakes everywhere she turned, it made her stomach churn. It also didn't help that there were ornamental snakes that were carved into the poles that held up the curtains on her four poster bed. There were whispers vibrating around the stone walls and most of them were about her and her unusual familiar that curled up by her side.

"_they let her bring a tiger? Isn't that against the rules or something?"_ one girl whispered only to be shushed by another.

"_it doesn't matter, if she hadn't been allowed they wouldn't have let her bring it now go to sleep."_ The other whispered. There was a sound of shuffling as both girls turned away from each other as they quieted down for a long sleep.

Kathleen sighed and pulled Mitten's closer to her, the Tiger Cub purring at she scratched the top of his head for comfort. "looks like this is going to be a long year…a very…long…year…" she said quietly to her cub burying her face into his fur and closing her eyes willing herself to sleep as if she wasn't surrounded by her fears.

Kathleen woke up the next morning expecting sunlight to greet her, but only found the dull light of candles, she hated being in the dungeons already, too dark, gloomy and to perfect for slithering reptiles. She wished she could go back to the Sorting Hat the throw it out the window for making the mistake in placing her in the one place she really didn't need to be.

She slowly rolled over and stroked the soft fur of her Tiger cub only to find that the fur was hard and cold. She opened her eyes and frowned, in place of her Tiger was a stuffed animal that didn't even look tiger like. Her eyes widened and she shot up out of bed and put on a robe to go over her nightgown. She stomped out into the common room and glared at every single person that dared to glance at her. There had been wild chatter but it died down, even the snake prince stopped talking to stare at her.

"Okay, I will give you snakes one warning, if no one brings my cub back within fifteen minute I will personally rib apart this dungeon along with the body parts of the person responsible for taking him, and don't think I am kidding, I come from that back alleys of an American shit city, I don't need magic to kill you if I really wanted to." She hissed and she recognized the two girls who had been talking last night as they shriveled out of sight.

She stomped up to them and grabbed one of them from the front of their robe. "where. Is. He." Kathleen said flatly.

"w-we only meant it as a joke…l-like a…Hazing, he's locked in Draco Malfoy's trunk." She whimpered

Kathleen whipped around, she was an angry mother tiger. "Which one of you assholes is Malfoy.." she hissed her Green eyes blazing dangerously as they slowly turned molten gold.

The Snake Prince stood up from a velvet arm chair with a smug look on his face. "That would be me, and yes I have your Tiger, we meant no real harm, a she said just a joke. " he said calmly until he saw her eyes, he seemed to grow a little nervous. And his face turned to shock as she balled up her fist and pulled it back as she stomped up to him.

Kathleen stormed up to the blonde and pulled back her arm and punched him square in the face sending him flying back a few feet. She always had a strong Scottish punch, many jerk teenagers suffered from it back in New York.

"Don't you EVER touch my cub again, or I will make sure your face doesn't heal, magic or not." She growled and stomped up to the boy's dormitory and slammed open the door making the boys that were still sleeping fall out of bed or shout in surprise.

"which bed is Malfoy's." She snarled and stopped over to one of the beds that the boys pointed at and tore at the lock breaking it off and opening it to find Mittens scrambling out of it and into her arms, he let out a long quiet chuff. He had been scared and the inside of Malfoy's trunk lid was clawed into splinters. Before she left she pulled out her wand and pointed it at Malfoy's trunk and cast a quick spell she had learned from her grandfather's books and changed all his clothing into red and gold coloration, it wasn't hard to learn the Snake hated the lions, and the spell was permanent.

When Kathleen returned downstairs she found Professor Snape helping Malfoy up. The Slytherin head turned to her his face less then pleased.

"Before you say anything…I don't care if I get detention or whatever punishment you decide on, all I want you to know is I don't give a shit about anything when it comes to the safety of my Cub, and if anyone here ever touches him again, I will deal with them New York style with a side of French fries." She said glowering at Draco who glared back at her a little trickle of blood dripping off the side of his mouth. Mittens let out a low growl as if to complete her threat his blue eyes boring into the snake prince, Tigers had been known to eat snakes here and there.

Snape took a few moment to figure out what had happened, Kathleen was lucky she was in Slytherin house, or she probably wouldn't have gotten away with anything she just said.

"I see…" Snape drawled looking between Malfoy and Kathleen. "Draco, I seem to recall that stealing is against the rules, now I didn't just hear that you had broken that rule, did I?" Snape asked his cold eyes locked on his prized student.

Draco Malfoy looked away from him staring at one of the far walls.

"I thought so, and you miss Kathleen, since your new I will give you a warning, Fighting is not permitted unless it is an authorized wizards duel, which are very rare." He continued and waited till Kathleen nodded before he relaxed, he should have given her detention but she reminded him of someone and it was her first day and year a Hogwarts, he would give the benefit of the doubt. If it had been anyone from any other house they would have been scrubbing the entire outer wall of the castle.

Kathleen kept her cub with her the rest of the day, since he was a familiar it was allowed, most of the students just didn't like dragging them around and cleaning up after them. She was walking down one of the corridors towards the great hall for lunch when she ran into the raven-haired boy she had seen at the opening feast, he was flanked by a girl with bushy brown hair and a boy with bright red-orange hair.

The raven gave her a small smile but the other two looked more cautious, until Kathleen gave them a bring smile back.

"You don't have to look so worried, I might have been stuck in Slytherin house but I don't bite." She said reassuringly sticking a hand out to the raven. "My name is Kathleen Grey…and this is Mittens." She said tilting her head towards her tiger cub that had curled up beside her when she stopped.

The raven took her hand and gave it a soft shake. "I'm Harry, and this is Ron and Hermione." He said indicating toward his two followers.

Hermione stared at the Tiger blinking a few times and if she was thinking of something and bit her lip, but then seemed to shake it off. "Mittens, that's a cute name…but I don't think it will suit him when he gets older." She said looking back up to Kathleen. "is it alright if I pet him?"

The red head, Ron grinned. "Yeah, can we pet him…or will he bite our hands off?" he asked making Kathleen laugh.

"Yeah, he likes people, he has too since my father and myself were Magicians performing in New York…so I don't see why you can't, just don't pull on his tail, he hates that." Kathleen said and grinned when Hermione and Ron bent down and started smothering her little cub with affection.

"So, a tiger is a little unusual for a familiar, how did you get the teachers to agree with it?" Hermione asked scratching Mittens in between the ears.

"I wrote a letter to Professor McGonagall and she said it was fine since he's still technically a cat and I'm bonded to him." Kathleen explained and it seemed to satisfy Hermione who didn't ask anything else and continued to slather Mittens with love.

Harry watched his two friends for a few moments and looked up at Kathleen.

"So how'd you get stuck in Slytherin, you seem more like a Gryffindor to me, especially after you snapped at that First Year during the opening feast. " He commented trying to make conversation.

Kathleen thought about it and shrugged not really coming up with any real answer.

"I really have no idea…the hat said it was extremely difficult to place me…so I guess it just picked randomly…unfortunately, it was at my expense, those assholes locked Mittens in a trunk that belonged to some jerk named Draco Malfoy…" She said crossing her arms frowning at the memory. "called it a Hazing, assholes…"

"Yeah, I figured you would run into him sooner or later, I saw him staring at you during the opening feast." Harry said feeling sorry for her Tiger cub, animals like him shouldn't be locked in small places even as a joke on the owner, it was flat out cruel.

Ron seemed to turn a little red at the name. "If he took anything of mine I would Hex him." The red head growled.

"That's okay, I rearranged his face for him…Mittens is my cub in a sense, that snake just has to learn that when it comes to my cub, I'll be glad to rip his throat out…" she said and watched as Harry and Ron turned red with laughter.

Ron took a breath in and nodded. "you know, I like you, you might have been stuck in a snake pit, but you are nothing like a Slytherin. Oh how I wish I could have been there to see Malfoy's face when you socked him."

They spent nearly a quarter of lunch talking the corridor before they made their way into the Great Hall. Kathleen was telling them about her life in New York, the beat of the city and the good times and bad, some nights she and her Father had to move in the middle of the night because the neighborhood was getting so bad and so were the pranks that were pulled on them that it was getting out of control.

"That's how I lost my mother…was from one of the pranks a gang of teenagers pulled, I wouldn't call it a prank though, I would just call it horrible…my Father for one of his acts set a box she was in on fire, but you know those tricks where there is a secret door that you crawl in and out of. But one night a gang of drunk teenagers surrounded her and lit a match and threw it on her…she died later that night in the hospital from third degree burns…I was only five." Kathleen explained as they reached the Double doors to the Great Hall.

The Trio stared at her, both sad and horrified. Harry looked at the ground, there was evil all over the world whether it be a dark wizard or just a group of kids.

"I lost my parents when I was still a baby…I can't remember anything about them except the night they died. They were murdered by another Wizard." Harry said still looking at the ground.

Kathleen looked at the raven-haired and gave him a small smirk of sympathy.

"Well, maybe one day, we will both get the revenge we deserve…" she said and before Harry could say anything she pushed open the doors and picked up Mittens. "Now whose hungry, my stomach is practically eating itself from the inside out. "

Harry blinked a few times but knew she was trying to change the subject so he just looked at his friends and gave a small shrug so they wouldn't press the issue and walked into the Great Hall.

Immediately the group of Four was met with shocked stares, the golden trio was interacting with a Slytherin and as they watched the girl with Fiery Golden hair sat down with them at the Gryffindor table and actually smiled as she talked and laughed. Soon enough the Gryffindors excepted her, but the Slytherins looked appalled shooting her nasty looks and hissing to one another, just like an angry pile of snakes. The other houses didn't know what to make of it but they seemed to except it just like the Gryffindors and continued with their lunch.

After lunch Kathleen waved goodbye to her knew friends as she made her way to the dungeons for potions class. When she entered the cold room she was met with several pairs of harsh looks and whispers but she held her head high and sat down in an empty seat infront of a cauldron and started to pull out all the supplies that she needed.

A few more students piled in and seemed to avoid her, the last one to walk in was Draco Malfoy and as they were required to sit in pairs, the last seat was next to her.

The snake prince's figure stiffened and his eyes scanned the room, but seeing no other option her moved towards the bench and sat down keeping his eyes away from her as he did and began to dig through his own things.

Kathleen glared at Malfoy as he sat down but she wasn't going to yell at him for it since he had no other option since no one else was willing to sit with her. When they did catch each other's gaze Kathleen gave him a short nod, in a way telling him it was a short truce while they had to work together.

**Draco **let out a sigh of relief when he realized he wasn't going to receive another punch in the face for just being near her, he noticed she had dragged her Tiger along everywhere that day ever since the prank, that he now regretted.

He noticed his fellow Slytherins were whispering harshly here and there and staring at her. They had begun this after she had sent him flying, but even more after she was seen during lunch with Potter and his little band of rejects. He had to admit she was brave.

He was about to ask her a few questions when Snape walked into the room slamming the door behind himself making Draco close his mouth and face the front of the class.

"Open your books to page three-hundred and five and read till you reach page three hundred and ten, and take notes, if I don't see books open and quills moving I will be docking points and giving out detentions." Snape said coldly glaring at the entire class, though his eyes skipped over Draco and Kathleen.

Draco opened up his potions book and frowned the topic was about antidotes to certain poisons. They had done this last year, but he started to read anyway figuring it was review before a test. He heard shuffling beside him and saw that the new girl was looking for something in her bag. His eyes scanned her table. she had her Book, her ink well, paper..but she was missing her quill.

Draco glanced at Snape and saw him staring at her his eyebrows pulling into a frown, Draco knew that a lecture about how Slytherins were always prepared was forming in the Professors head. He quickly pulled out an extra quill and poked her under the table to get her attention, but he kept his face on the book. He didn't know why he was going to help her, after all she punched him in the face, but at the same time through the shock that he had almost gotten his face bashed in a twinge of respect flew through him, no one, beside Grander last year, had ever tried to sock him a good one.

**Kathleen **was digging through her things when she felt something poke her. She turned to hiss at Malfoy when she noticed he was holding a extra quill in his hand under the table but his face was locked on his book.

Carefully Kathleen took the quill away from him and his empty hand slipped onto his lap casually. She blinked a few times and opened her book and rested her quill and hand on the paper and began reading, only pausing to dip her quill in the ink and scribble something down.

Once and a while Kathleen would glance at Malfoy as he worked, his blonde eyebrows arched in a neat frown of concentration and the end of his quill gracefully brushing against his soft lips as he thought. She looked away again trying to focus on her reading her long red-gold hair falling infront of her face to keep herself from looking at the Snake Prince. Her heart had sped up just a little when she had stolen that small glance but it was enough to bring color to her face. She frowned as she read the pages of the book finding it harder and harder to concentrate with Draco beside her.

After a while she was able to focus on the book again with her veil of Hair blocking out Draco and she brushed the white end feather of the quill against her cheek enjoying it softness, only taking it away to write some more notes before bringing back to her cheek. It even had a sent to it, she guessed it was from Malfoy. It smelled a little like lavender. She couldn't help but even out her breathing to savor the smell, she loved lavenders. She closed her eyes and focused on the sent a small smile coming to her face, she imagined herself in a field of lavenders.

_Kathleen was laying on her back staring up at the sky and Mittens laid on her chest batting at one of the flower heads with one of his big paws. He jumped off and danced around the field playing like the little cub he was. Kathleen laughed at her little cub when there was suddenly movement out of the corner of her eyes. The Snake Prince was standing there with a small gentle smile on his face. _

_Kathleen stood and walked over to him and he wrapped his arms around her and she could feel him lean closer, his soft breath was against her neck in moments and she couldn't help but close her eyes and lean her head back. _

_She giggled as he kissed her neck. Giggled? Wait..she didn't giggle, in fact she never did anything too girly in the first place. Something was wrong, she hated snakes and the Prince of Snakes was holding her. She pushed him away and glared up at him only to have her fantasy melt away into darkness. She then felt a sharp poke in her side._

**Draco** glanced over at Kathleen as her hair fell infront of her face. He sided and shook his head as he finished his notes and shut his book. He glanced back over at he again and noticed her breathing had evened out and her hand had fell to her lap and she was leaned forward ever so slightly. He blinked a few times when he realized what had happened. She fell asleep. He frowned and watched her for a few minutes before he poked her again, sharply. He couldn't believe this girl. There was being brave, but falling asleep in Potions class with Snape was just stupid.

**Kathleen** opened her eyes and lifted her head to stare at Malfoy sleepily. She glared at him for a moment then realized why he had poked her. Panicking she look up at Snape, who luckily had his face buried in a more advanced potions book. She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck and looked at Draco in thanks and continued her work, luckily she had been almost finished.

By the time she finished her notes, Class was over. Kathleen shut her book and started packing everything way. She looked at the quill in her hand and turned to give it back to Malfoy, but he was already gone. She sighed, he might have let her borrow his quill, but there was no way he would sit by someone who had rearranged his face earlier.

She turned when someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was Malfoy.

Kathleen blushed a little as her eyes locked with his and she suddenly had to look away when she remembered her dream. She shoved the quill into his hands.

"Here is your quill back…I won't need it anymore, I'll just go back to the dorms and grab mine.." she managed to get out quickly before she practically fled out of the dungeons before Malfoy had a chance to speak. If this was they was she was going to act around him from now on..she had a difficult year ahead of her.

A very Long and difficult year.


	3. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

**I think I kinda like you.**

**A Harry Potter Fan-Fiction**

**Disclaimer: I Do not own Harry Potter or its Characters or settings, those are owned by J.K. Rowling. (only the main character is mine)**

**Okay here it is Chapter three, I am trying to pump these out as fast as possible.**

**Hope all of you enjoy. And remember I switched this to start at fourth year so yeah. (I have to make Dumbledore's announcement be a little late so I can get this story moving in the right direction since I forgot to put it in the second chapter.)**

_**Another Note**_**: I am leaving out the whole thing about Hermione and her obsession over House Elves. In fact I am leaving out a lot of thing, since this is a fan fiction I am making this story my own in a way and so I will only leave in key events but that's about it. **

_**Chapter 3 :Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble**__…_

**Kathleen **sat on the soft grass of the school grounds near the lake. Her legs crossed under her and mittens rested gently in her lap purring comfortably in the dip that her legs made. He flattened his ears each time his adoptive mother ran her hand through the soft fur on top of his head. She softly gazed out into the water and a soft gentle song escaped her lips echoing a short distance. Her father sang it as a lullaby to her as a small child after her mother died.

_Come over the hills, my bonnie Irish lass  
>Come over the hills to your darling<br>You choose the road, love, and I'll make the vow  
>And I'll be your true love forever.<em>

_Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows  
>Fair is the lily of the valley<br>Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne  
>But my love is fairer than any.<em>

_'Twas down by Killarney's green woods that we strayed  
>When the moon and the stars they were shining<br>The moon shone its rays on her locks of golden hair  
>And she swore she'd be my love forever. <em>

_Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows  
>Fair is the lily of the valley<br>Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne  
>But my love is fairer than any.<em>

_It's not for the parting that my sister pains  
>It's not for the grief of my mother<br>'Tis all for the loss of my bonny Irish lass  
>That my heart is breaking forever. <em>

_Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows  
>Fair is the lily of the valley<br>Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne  
>But my love is fairer than any.<br>_

Unknowingly to her Kathleen was being watched by a set of eyes, one was a pair of silver-grey that stood a little ways away listening to the sad lament. And another were bright green sitting near the lake shore just close enough to hear the song, but, far enough away not to be seen. It was the silver eyes that approached her first before the green ones could think about moving.

**Draco**__slowly approached Kathleen from behind, not wanting to interrupt the beautiful voice he stepped carefully on the grass making very little sound. His face was tender a small amount of sadness behind them replacing the cold exterior he always had in position. She seemed sad sitting there, singing a song so sad the waves on the lake seemed to calm in heartbreak. He had the sudden urge to embrace the golden haired beauty before him. He had to swallow as he reached a hand down to brush against her shoulder. He suddenly stopped and pulled back as he saw the silver teardrop drop in mid fall from her hidden face. He shook his head and backed away, thanking god that the tiger hadn't caught his sent. When he felt he was a safe distance away again he turned his head to face a pair of bright green eyes, thinking her had been caught by Kathleen he realized he was looking in a different direction and the figure was obviously not her, save for the matching eyes.

They were Potter's eyes he was staring at, they were glaring at him as if daring him to go back to the girl. Draco glared back but neither could hold their gazes for long since bother were still struggling to keep their presence hidden to the singing beauty.

When Draco realized Kathleen had stopped signing he was ready to approach her again when Potter stood and called out to her. Draco let out a curse as he saw Kathleen turned her head towards his enemy and her sad face broke out in a grin. Deep down Draco felt as if he should be the one receiving that bright happy face. He clenched his fists and stomped off before he could see her stand and run over to the Potter brat.

When he reached the castle he just leaned against one of the walls and crossed his arms glowing back towards the lake where he saw two figures talking to each other. Kathleen had been avoiding him ever since Potions Class nearly three days ago and she had been sitting at the Gryffindor table ever since so he had no chance to talk to her about her strange behavior. He hadn't done anything to her to deserve her cold shoulder. But as he thought he sighed. _'probably is still holding on to that prank I pulled.' _He mumbled in his head and let his head fall back onto the wall and he stared as the clouds passing across the clear blue, sunny, sky. Suddenly he heard his name being shouted out by two loud grunting voices. He sighed. It was Crab and Goyle, his two bodyguards. Just when he thought he had time to himself. He had appointed these two as his friends in first year, and so the years following they stuck to him like glue, thought they were as bright as dragon dung. When the two approached he put on his aloof face and stood.

"There you idiots are, here I thought you were right behind me only to find you two blithering baboon's had decided to go and lose yourselves." He snapped harshly at the two who looked confused staring at each other and then back to Draco. In reality Draco had vanished from their sight, but he was their boss so whatever he said must be true.

"Sorry, we didn't know we had lost you until you were gone." Goyle mumbled in a deep dull voice that matched his less then attractive looks. Crab nodded frantically beside him.

"Yeah what he said." Crab said in a even dumber voice.

"Whatever, just don't let it happen again, come on, let's get back inside before it decides to rain." Draco said eyeing the dark clouds coming towards the castle from the lake.

The two took their place behind Draco and the tree of them stalked back into the castle.

**Kathleen's **head turned quickly as she heard her name shouted from a distance. She grinned as she saw one of her new friends. She stood plopping Mittens out of her lap and just as she was about to run towards Harry when she caught the glimpse of Malfoy's retreating figure. She decided to ponder on it later as she was caught in Harry's arms in a tight hug. She returned the hug and grinned up at the green eyed boy.

"Hey, I didn't see you at breakfast or lunch today. Were you here this entire time?" he asked releasing Kathleen from the hug, though he really hadn't wanted to, she was so wonderful to hold.

"Yeah, I seemed to have lost track of time. The lake seemed to pull me towards it and I couldn't help but sit there staring at it." she said and smiled softly. "it reminded me of when I was little and my mother would take me to a small lake in Ireland before we moved to New York." Kathleen said looking sadly back to the dark water and noticed the dark clouds heading their way.

"You lived in Ireland?" Harry asked tilting his head to the side. He wondered why she occasionally let an Irish accent slip when she was deep in thought.

"Yeah, but I was only there till I was four, I only remember little flashes now and then, it's happening more often now that I am so close to its shores. And Dad never let me forget it, he always spoke in a heavy Irish accent, so did mother if I remember correctly." Kathleen mused and watched the black clouds draw closer.

**Harry** smiled at his friend, he was learning more and more about her in a short time and it pleased his she was so easy to talk to, even if the things she shared were a little sad. He then noticed her gaze and let his eyes follow hers to the black water filled clouds threatening to drown them.

"I think we should return to the castle…he said as they began to draw ever closer until he could see the heavy, fast, rain drops that hit the lake water approaching them like a wave.

Harry grinned as he and Kathleen dashed back to the castle, her hand was held firmly in Harry's and as the raven haired boy ran inside he felt his hand slip out of hers and he turned staring though the open doors of the Great Hall at the fiery haired girl as she stood outside and waited for the rain to fall around her drenching her instantly. He noticed her cub Mittens also stayed outside with her playing in the rain jumping and catching the heavy drops in his mouth and pouncing on them as they hit the ground.

He was going to call her back in when he noticed she had started to dance, a gleeful expression on her face as the water ran through her hair and rolled down her skin. She was jumping and twirling around under the black clouds and laughing. It was obvious she loved the rain, and even as lighting cracked across the sky she just laughed and danced around some more.

"What's with her?" Ron said coming up behind Harry and stared at his strange Slytherin friend.

"She could catch a really bad cold." Hermione said from Harry's other side.

"I suppose she likes the rain…and it does look kinda fun." Harry replied. He heard whispers behind him and turned to see the other students staring at the strange girl outside, dancing out in the storm. Dinner was about to start so some of the students arrived early. His eyes caught a pair of silver ones glaring out at Kathleen. Malfoy stood there with his teeth clenched together annoyed. Harry could tell her silly play was causing the other Slytherins distress, she would be the ruin of their carefully crafted, and posh, reputation.

The Trio looked at each other and then grinned running outside to join in with the foolishness, even Hermione danced beside her new friend, the one that was always worried about what people would think.

People gasped when they saw the famous Harry Potter and his two friends join the silly slytherin girl. But as a few more second dragged on several more students rushed out to join them, none were any of the snakes but the other houses delighted in the game. Though a few did stay inside not wanting to get their clothes wet before dinner.

Harry had never had more fun, in this simple moment of fun and bliss he could forget he was Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived and the person name Voldemort never existed in his mind. Of course that all ended when Professor Dumbledore walked out of the castle with Hagrid walking beside him holding his little pink umbrella over the Headmasters head. Though the old man had a kind face that beamed at the merry making he held a hand up to stop the students in their play.

"Now, I am sad to end this, but the storm is going to worsen soon, and dinner is waiting to be served." The kindly old man spoke and smiled as the students mumbled their 'yes sir's and then piled in through the doors of the Great Hall.

As the students entered the castle Dumbledore cast a quick spell to dry all the students before they took their seats at their tables.

**Kathleen** and the Trio were the last to enter and the four of them beamed up at the headmaster as they made their way to the Gryffindor table. Kathleen let out a relived sigh at the warm spell rolled over her drying off her wet clothes and warming her chilled bones.

"Thank you professor." She said to the kindly old wizard who nodded back at her before he let the great double doors swing shut behind him with a flick of his wand.

She sat herself next to Harry and laughed happily with them, still giddy from they're joyful time.

As soon as everyone was seated and hungry food appeared before them and everyone quickly began to tuck in.

Ron grabbed as much food as he possibly could and threw it on to his plate. And began to stuff his face as if he was going to die of starvation at that very moment.

Kathleen held back a laugh at the look of disgust on Hermione's face as the red head ate like a barbarian.

Harry just smirked at his friend as he piled food onto his own plate, though he ate a little more like a civilized person.

When dinner was nearly finished and all the food was just about eaten, Kathleen noticed Dumbledore stand slowly and scan the room with his bright, electric blue, eyes that were hidden behind his half moon spectacles.

"So…" he began. "Now that you are all stuffed to the brim with food and drink, I think it is time for me to make a few announcements that I am afraid I neglected before…"

Kathleen heard the groans and sighs of students as he announced that certain items, a sum of four

hundred and thirty-seven items, to be exact, were banned thanks to their caretaker Filtch.

"Also, there will be no Inter-House Quiddich Cup this year…" He continued and Kathleen noticed Harry stiffen beside her.

"What!" he exclaimed and there was a burst of noise as the students started to buzz over the news. She noticed Harry was looking at individual people, including Ron's twin brothers Fred and George, who were looking at him back with extremely confused expressions all they could do was shake their heads and shrug. Dumbledore went on, "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy - but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts -"

But Dumbledore didn't have a chance to answer when the doubled doors burst open and a man trudged in.

Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers' table. A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped.

The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any of them had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening.

One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye, and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all they could see was whiteness.

The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn't hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.

The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.

"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. "Professor Moody."

Once again the Students broke out in to loud excited whispers. They had been waiting two weeks for their new teacher and he had finally arrived. This man, Moody, was the last person anyone thought of.

Kathleen looked down at her tiger cub who had jumped into her lap from his resting place below her feet. He glared at the new comer and his nose raised to sniff the air in his direction. Suddenly his fur around his neck bristled and he let out a deep growl and his nose wrinkled and his jaws opened in a hiss.

Kathleen was shocked at the behavior of her cub, she wouldn't bother him when he was in this mood though, if she touched him he might tear her arm to pieces, mother of not. Then her cub jumped back out of her lap and scurried out of the Great Hall through the second set of double doors that lay open to the rest of the castle. She worried for him, but she would have to find him later because Dumbledore had raised his hand in silence and a nearly all at once the students calmed and sat patiently waiting for their Headmaster to continue.

"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."

"You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly.

The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.

"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar…"

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

"Err - but maybe this is not the time.. . no. . ." said Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament. . . well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.

"The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities - until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued."

"Death toll?" Hermione whispered, looking alarmed. But her anxiety did not seem to be shared by the majority of students in the Hall; many of them were whispering excitedly to one another, and Harry and Kathleen were far more interested in hearing about the tournament than in worrying about deaths that had happened hundreds of years ago.

"There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament," Dumbledore continued, "none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself

in mortal danger.

"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money."

"I'm going for it!" Fred Weasley hissed down the table, his face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. He was not the only person who seemed to be visualizing himself as the Hogwarts champion. At every House table, people were either gazing at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.

"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age - that is to say, seventeen years or older - will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This" - Dumbledore raised his voice

slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Weasley twins were suddenly looking furious - "is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage

student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion." His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred's and George's mutinous faces. "I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.

"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested

as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime!"

Kathleen sighed as she and the other four stood with the rest of the students and began making their way out of the great hall. She waved goodnight to her friends, who were too busy talking with the Weasley twins to really notice as she slipped off down the halls to look for her cub.

It was early morning before she found him, Filtch trudging behind her helping to find the tiger. People usually would think twice about asking for his help, thinking he was a sour, cruel, disgusting squib. But Kathleen had seen him take a liking to mittens ever since he found the little tiger cub and his Cat Mrs. Norris playing with him.

Kathleen was about to give up and go to bed when she heard the sound of a Tigers chuff. She turned to Filtch and pointed down the hall so the caretaker could shine his light down it. and there he was behind a suit of armor, his head raised and a light chuff escaping his throat.

"You little mongrel!" Kathleen half yelled running to her cub and scooping him up and turned to Filtch. "Thank you Sir, I appreciate the help." She said planting a kiss on the Caretakers cheek, something all students would avoid doing at all costs so they didn't lose their lunch.

Filtch felt his face turn red and his looked away from the Girl and her Tiger cub. "I did it for Mrs. Norris, she would be upset if she couldn't play with him." He mumbled and then straitened himself out. "now off to bed before I have to give you detention for delaying any longer." He said in his usual rough, commanding voice.

Kathleen grinned up at him and hurried down the corridors towards the dungeons.

Filtch watched her go and looked down at his scruffy cat Mrs. Norris as she showed up beside him and meowed. He had never been thanked for his work before nor had anyone seemed to want to show his a scrap of kindness, Besides Dumbledore, so he never showed any in return.

"Strange Girl she is my sweet…very strange indeed…" He cooed to Mrs. Norris and then continued his nightly stalking down the long hallways.

When she entered the Common room she was talking softly to her cub that rested in her arms, she wasn't saying anything important, just all he missed at dinner. Suddenly she heard someone shift in one of the chairs and she looked up to see the top of someone's head resting against the back of the green velvet couch infront of the fireplace. She set Mittens down and walked around the couch to see Malfoy's sleeping face.

She frowned at the sight of him and was about to turn away when he sifted again and opened his silver eyes that scanned the room sleepily till they rested on Kathleen.

"And where the hell have you been?" He mumbled sitting up and stretching.

Kathleen stared at him startled and looked around him and saw no books or anything else that would give him a reason to be sleeping down in the common room. Could it be he had waited for her? She shook her head mentally.

"Well?" Malfoy said in a demanding voice, thought it was still heavy with sleep.

"Filtch was helping me find Mittens…he had ran off during dinner." She mumbled looking away from the Snake Prince a light blush on her cheeks. Unknowing to Malfoy his hair had become rumpled and messy, and the top buttons of his white shirt had become undone revealing his neck and top of his chest.

She turned away from Malfoy as she remembered her dream and bid him a quick goodnight and rushed towards the girls dorm.

**Draco **Stared after Kathleen, he had been there all night waiting for her, and she didn't even give him two seconds of her time before she was rushing off, like usual.

When Dinner had ended he had seen her rush away from the dungeons, but he decided he wouldn't follow. Instead he went back to the common room and sat down on the couch and waited. When it was half past midnight he summoned a book and began to read. At Two he got rid of the book and started to pace around, At Three-Thirty he had passed out on the couch.

He looked at the grandfather clock across the room, it was four-forty-five. He gritted his teeth and stood, he would have reminded her there was class later that morning, but that wouldn't be true since they had Saturdays and Sundays off. He made his way back into the boys dorms and slipped into his bed, drawing the curtains and ignoring the few students that woke up to stare at him before turning over and going back to sleep.

Though he didn't fall asleep as fast as he hoped, he was thinking about her, how wild she looked as she danced in the rain, the hard shell on his outside and his mental restrain, and his hatred for Potter, was the only think that had kept him from running out there to join her. Though Crab and Goyle were supposed to be his friends. They wouldn't hesitate to tell their parents if Draco started to do things out of character, well the character they imagined. His father would have scolded him, and possibly beat him if he learned his son was acting like a child infront of the entire school with some wild girl. He was supposed to set examples, not follow them unless they were given to him by his father.

He closed his eyes and remembered her soft beautiful voice and found that it was becoming easier to relax before he fell into a deep slumber. He dreamed of rain and lightning and a single fiery light that took the form of a powerful tigress. He stared at it through the darkness as it danced it's way wildly thought the storm refusing to be diminished by the harsh rain drops and cold winds.

Kathleen sat quietly in Defense against the Dark Arts watching Professor Moody carefully. There was just something not right about him, she didn't know how to place it, but her instinct told her not to trust him.

He talked about the previous Teacher, a professor Lupin and how he had wrote a letter to Moody telling him what subjects they had covered…or at least what everyone else covered. She sighed, forgetting her suspicious feeling and let her head slam down on the table. this was going to be very difficult for her, Charms class was okay since Professor Flitwick let her come to his class and sit in with the first years during her free period on Wednesdays. But Defense Against the Dark Arts was going to be trouble.

"Is there a problem miss…" he looked over his list of students, he recognized each last name save for one. "Grey?" he finished his question both of his eyes fixed on her.

Kathleen sat up and a blush appeared on her face as people turned to stare at her. She was about to say something when Malfoy spoke up. Again she had to sit next to him since all the other seats had been taken and Moody wanted her to sit with one of her house mates so he didn't confuse her between the Lions and the Snakes.

"She's just stressed sir, she is a fourth year, but this is her first year in a Magic Academy. " he said as an excuse for her behavior. He had picked up on her mood.

"Is you name Miss Grey?" Moody growled glaring at the Snake Prince who shrunk back in his seat and looked down as his face turned red as well.

"He right Sir…" Kathleen mumbled.

Moody nodded and remember Dumbledore had sent him a letter about her, that she needed extra classes. "Well, don't worry about the past subjects for now, today I will be teaching you green-horns about curses…and not just any curses, the three unforgivable curses." He said and let his blue eye wiz around in its socket again and his normal one scanned the students faces as they turned to horror or just lost all color.

"So, straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter curses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You

need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away,

Miss Brown, when I'm talking."

The Girl named Lavender, Kathleen noticed, jumped and blushed. She had been showing her Friend Parvati her completed horoscope under the desk. Apparently Moody's magical eye could see through

solid wood, as well as out of the back of his head.

"So. . . do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?" Moody continued staring around the room until his eyes rested on Ron who hand his hand held timidly over his head. Hermione stared at him a little shocked, he never answered questions, most the time he didn't know the answers.

"Go ahead…" Said Moody staring at the Red head. He was unmistakably one of Arthur Weasly's sons.

"Err, Dad told me about one…called the imperious curse…" he mumbled

Moody nodded. "Yes your Father would know of that one, Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble a few years back." he said and then turned to his desk and opened up a small Jar that held three spiders. Kathleen shivered and she saw Ron's face become paler then marble. Though she wasn't too scared, Spiders just gave her a creepy feeling , it was Snakes she hated the most.

She watched as Moody pointed his wand at it and whispered. "Imperio." And suddenly she saw as the Spider did un-spider like things, and it gave her a feeling of dread, the other students laughed at it did back flips and danced a small jog on Moody's desk. She started to turn as pale as Ron as she knew what he was showing them, though the others thought it was just a merry time. Moody locked his eyes one her for two seconds and then let out a growling Voice.

"So you all think this is so funny…do you?" Moody sneered around the room at the students. "Then you would like it, if it were cast on you?" he continued and the laughing died immediately. Suddenly the Spider curled up into a little ball and started to roll around the table. "Total Control, I could make it do anything, Jump out the window perhaps. The spider flew to the window but stopped on the window sill. "Or drown itself." He said again flicking his wand and it flew to a glass of water on his desk, but he held it there. then the spider flew back into his hand and he threw it back into the jar with the others when it started to do summersaults.

"The thing about this Curse, is it can be fought, and that is why I am here. To teach you how, but it takes great strength of character." He said. "Now, what is the next Curse? Anyone?"

Kathleen watched as he picked a boy she knew as Neville Longbottom, one of Harry's friends.

She covered her ears as Moody picked up a new spider from the jar and he cast a quick spell to make it grow. And then it gave out a terrible shriek, though no one but here could hear it. as Moody cast the Cruciatus Curse on the poor thing. It crumpled under his wand in pain and Kathleen gritted her teeth and closed her eyes tears streaming down her face as if it were she that the curse had been cast on. She hated this class already, she hated this lesson, she knew she had to learn these things soon, after all she figured the Wizerding world was full of happy Wonder, as it was with Hate, anger, sadness, and evil.

**Draco** watched as Kathleen struggled with this, after all this was her first year here, and she wasn't used to this. But Draco knew these curses all too well, it comes with the territory when your Father is a former follower of a Dark wizard. He took his chance and put a hand on Kathleen's back and rubbed it gently.

He was shocked when she leaned against him seeking comfort. He couldn't believe the girl he had been seeing the last few days was the angry New Yorker who had punched him in the face just weeks before.

Moody let his eyes wander around resting on Harry and Kathleen. Harry seemed to be taking this okay, he seemed deep in thought and a little horrified, but the Girl, he could tell she was a strong willed girl, but there she was leaning against Draco Malfoy, a boy who was supposed to be refined and as uncaring and cold as his father, and yet he was offering her comfort.

**Kathleen** suddenly straitened and she opened her mouth. "Stop it!..just stop…" she cried clenching her fists together and biting her bottom lip. The spiders shrieks were becoming too much for her.

Moody immediately released the curse and people turned to face the girl's tear streaked face.

"Pain…" said Moody softly and people turned back around to face him. "you don't need to know any other ways of torture if you know how to use that Curse. It has drove many a good witch and wizard to madness and endless suffering." He said and then looked around the room. "And the last one?"

Hermione raised her hand for the third time, determined not to be ignored again. Moody's eye rested on her. "Yes?" he asked in a softer voice.

"A-Avada Kadavra…" Hermione whispered silently as if second guessing if she really did want to answer.

Moody took out the last Spider and pointed his wand at it. Kathleen didn't want to watch but she felt she had to. She looked at Draco who's face went hard and then her eyes hit Harry, she saw the tears at the corners of his eyes and he looked as if he were going to be sick, she felt the same way.

"AVADA KADAVRA!" Moody roared and there was a flash of green light and the spider crumpled under it and died.

Kathleen leapt from her seat nearly knocking Draco over as well and back up against the far wall and shook, the hair on the back of her neck rising her eyes flashed molten gold but changed back in the same instant. This didn't escape Moody but he decided to leave her be. She was frightened and he would wait till she was calm to talk to her. Perhaps after the lesson.

"Not nice, no pleasant." He spoke in a soft tone to the class, but his face was hard and serious. "there is no counter curse, not blocking it, if you are hit, you are dead…only one person as ever survived it, and he is sitting right in front of me." He said both eyes staring at Harry. The rest of the class turned to face the raven, whose face flushed and he lowered his head looking at his desk.

Kathleen stared at her friend, she then realized that the other student's weren't shocked at this information, and it came to her attention they all knew something she didn't, something she missed about her friend.

The rest of the lesson they took notes, except Kathleen who Moody left alone as she sat in the corner unnoticed by the other students, except for Malfoy and her new friends they kept glancing back at her as she stared blankly at the floor. This lesson had made her sink back into herself, she wanted her father, but most of all she wanted her mother.

When the lesson ended she rushed out of the Class room ignoring as Moody called her name, even Harry, Hermione, and Ron tried but they couldn't get her to come back.

Tears filled her face as she ran, she couldn't believe herself, thinking that this world, though it might have had its faults, was better than the outside world. She made her way to the dungeons and ran into the girls dorm and threw herself upon her bed and cried. She didn't know why it upset her so much, but it did and her tears soaked her pillow.

Mittens crawled over to his mother and started to lick her cheek. He had been resting peacefully on the end of the four-poster until she had come rushing in. he let out a small chuff as she pulled him towards her and cried into his fur.

**Draco** followed Kathleen to the dungeons, it wasn't time to head back yet for the next lesson was starting, but he wanted to check on her, they had charms class next, but it could wait, she was in distress and for a strange reason this worried Draco.

He knew he wasn't allowed in the Girls dorms, but since Kathleen would be the only one in there he decided to damn the rule and opened the door walking inside. He saw her, on her bed with her Tiger cub wrapped in her arms and she was weeping horribly.

As Draco watched he felt a weight sink into his stomach and guilt bubble up as if it was his fault. Draco was only a baby when his Father had been at the side of the Dark Lord, but he felt as guilty at the older Malfoy should feel for causing so much pain. Seeing Kathleen he wanted to take back everything he had done in his years at Hogwarts, even towards Potter and the other two. But he knew he wouldn't be able to without his father finding out, and he didn't want to cross that path, besides he still held a grudge against Potter for rejecting him first year, so he did the only thing that he could do, even if it was just a small step towards forgiveness.

He sat down on her bed and placed his hand on her back like he did in Class.

He smiled softly as her as Kathleen turned her head towards him, and felt relieved when she didn't shout at him to get out or slap his hand away. instead she sat there crying letting Draco rub his hand up and down her back in a comforting motion, he didn't want this moment to end but he knew when she gathered herself together, things would have to go back to the way they were. She would continue to ignore him, he knew it, and she would continue to sit far from the Slytherin table and talk with Potter, Weasley, and the Mudblood Granger. He gritted his teeth as he felt his heart clench.

When Draco took his hand away, Kathleen had fell asleep and her cub was staring up at him, purring.

"At least you have forgiven me." He whispered and rubbed one of the cubs ears before standing up and leaving the room, he would have to tell Flitwick that she was sick and resting in her room, he was sure the old man would understand.

Draco thought back to Kathleen as he sat in Charms class twirling his quill through his fingers. He thought of her bright green eyes and her fiery red hair and the soft sent of lily's that seemed to cling to her, and then his heart clenched again as he remembered her beautiful song, her sad face, and then the tears that fell from those beautiful emerald eyes of hers. It was that moment that Draco dropped his quill as he realized what he was feeling. Love, he loved Kathleen. But he knew that she would never know his feelings because, if she did, he was afraid he would chase her away, besides he saw the way she looked at Potter and it made his chest hurt, remembering her face when she saw the raven haired boy at the lake. In such a short time this girl had melted the ice around his heart and then at the same time broke it into a million pieces.

**Well there it is, Chapter three, hope you all liked it R&R please and remember if I twist things around just bare with me. It's not going to fit exactly into the book, so don't go off and read the book then tell me I'm wrong remember this is a Fan-fiction not the actual story.**

**Disclaimer Reminder: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER (J. K. Rowling does)**

**Please excuse grammar and other slight mistakes…because I'm not going back to fix them. **


	4. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**I think I kinda like you.**

**A Harry Potter Fan-Fiction**

**Disclaimer: I Do not own Harry Potter or its Characters or settings, those are owned by J.K. Rowling. (only the main character is mine)**

_**Chapter 4 : Something Wicked This way Comes. **_

Once more **Kathleen** found herself in Defense against the Dark Art's class just two weeks after her panic attack. This time though, she wanted to hide back in her corner again. Moody actually wanted to place the Imperio Curse on them, to show them what it would feel like, and how to fight it. she let her teeth grind together. At least it wouldn't be either of the other two that either cause immense pain, or death.

After Moody let the students prepare themselves for the lesson, the student's lined up and each one was placed under the curse, and each of them had the same face, peaceful and obedient. Then Harry was placed under it and she could Hear Moody's voice become more demanding as he told him to jump onto the desk, she could see Harry struggling with himself until finely he did a half-assed leap head first into the wood. Kathleen flinched and watched her friend get up rubbing his head painfully.

"Now That's more like it!" Moody shouted clapping Harry on the back as the boy stood. "you see that everyone, He Fought it! that is what I have been talking about." Moody said letting Harry move to the back of the room with the other students who had already done their part. Then Moody's eyes fell on Kathleen.

"Your turn Miss Grey." He said and beckoned her over to stand in front of him. H raised his brow when she backed away from him. She felt the strangest sensation in her throat as she wanted to let out a growl as he lifted his wand. "Imperio." Moody half whispered and the class watched as a peaceful look came over the girls face.

"Now, come here…" Moody demanded

'why?' Kathleen thought in her head, though the peaceful haze. 'I like it right here. Besides you're not my father' She told herself.

"Come here Miss Grey." Moody said his tone rising but the girl didn't even twitch.

"No…" Kathleen said allowed taking a step back until she was against the wall forcing the peaceful feeling out of her mind and her eyes flashed their molten gold as they usually did when she was under stress. "I like it here thanks…" she finished glaring at the teacher for setting her under the curse when she had refused to move to the front.

Her Friends and the other Student's stared at her in shock, even Moody seemed to be confused his magical eye locked on the girl with interest as it stared into her gold eyes that were turning slowly back to Emerald.

Then he let out a loud growling laugh. "I dare say, that was the most brilliant thing I have ever seen." He nearly shouted clapping his hands. "well done Miss Grey, it was almost as if you had never been placed under it." he put his wand back in his robes and turned his normal eye back on her.

"Tell me, what were you thinking when I placed it one you? How did you fight it?" He asked mainly to educate the rest of the class.

"Easy…I'm from the back allies of New York, its constant survival there, if you don't have a strong will they you might as well go and get yourself shot by the gang across the street then let yourself get shoved around." Kathleen said crossing her arms and looking at the ground. "Just because I don't like the curses, doesn't mean I'm going to be ruled by them." She continued through gritted teeth.

The other students whispered and Moody nodded. He then looked at the clock along the far wall. "I hope all of you learned something useful today, now, lunch time, class dismissed." He said and the students hurried out of the room. He watched as Harry and Kathleen left the room before he picked up the flask dangling around his neck and took a large swig out of it.

"I swear, the way he talks, you would think we were to be attacked at any moment." Harry told Kathleen who laughed.

"They say Paranoia is the greatest Enemy." She commented "well, one of them." She added walking with the Trio to lunch. the four of them stopped when they heard Kathleen's name called by a familiar voice. One they were hoping to avoid for a longer while. Kathleen rolled her eyes and closed them gritting her teeth before turning around to face Draco Malfoy, flanked by his two 'bodyguards'.

**Harry **stepped in front of Kathleen his green eyes glaring at the blonde. "What do you want Malfoy." He growled, he suddenly felt protective over the girl, he had felt the same way at the lake.

"Stuff it Potter, I'm here to talk to Kathleen, not your ugly face." Malfoy hissed clenching his fist as if he wanted to punch the raven.

Harry opened his mouth to insult him back when he felt a soft touch on his shoulder. He turned his head to see Kathleen smiling at him.

"It's alright, I'll catch up later. You guys go on ahead, he won't give me any trouble, I promise." She said softly and Harry, though reluctant, had to agree.

He turned to his friends and nodded and the Trio headed towards the Great Hall for lunch.

**Kathleen** turned her eyes to Draco and she sighed.

"What do you want Draco…I was looking forward to getting to lunch on time for once…" she said crossing her arms. "And do your gorillas have to be here...honestly." she added glaring at Crab and Goyle.

**Draco **blinked a little surprised that she hadn't used his last name like Potter and his Friends did. He turned to the two idiots beside him and waved them away, and as expected they moved off to go to lunch before him.

"I just wanted to Talk a little, I noticed you were avoiding me, so I thought I would take my chances before you vanished into the Great Hall." He said and looked at the far wall behind her as if it held his interest.

**Kathleen** tilted her head to the left just slightly and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean I have been avoiding you? We barely even talk at all. You make it sound like we are Friends or something." She said coldly, though to her it sounded a bit harsh, but it was true, the only time she had really talked to him was when she punched him in the face, and she only sat next to him in class once or twice every two or three weeks. They never actually talked and she never sat at the Slytherin Table.

She saw a flash of hurt on Malfoy's face before it was replaced with his normal stony expression. He wanted to say something, she could see that plainly but instead he just shut his mouth again and turned away from her and walked away, down the corridors and away from the Great Hall.

Her heart felt like it was being crushed and her eye lids drooped, she felt as if she had just done something terrible. She then had a memory flash through her head, it was of her first Dark Arts lesson, when she had panicked and then run off to breakdown in the peace of the girls dormitory. She closed her eyes. Draco had been there, she thought it had been a dream to calm herself down, but now she realized it really hadn't been, she had even sought his comfort in the classroom itself.

She felt like a fool, he had been there to comfort her, even breaking the rules to be by her side and make sure she was okay, he had even broken his icy barrier to show her everything was alright, and here she was acting just like…like…

Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at the empty corridor. She was acting like a Slytherin.

**Draco** made his way down the corridors until walking did nothing for him anymore. He let out an angry scream and punched one of the suits of Armor watching it crash to the ground and winced as his knuckles split and started to bleed. He was completely alone, so no one would hear or notice him tearing anything up in the abandoned halls of the school. after punched a few more suits he slumped against the wall and slid down it staring at the floor blankly his blood running down his swollen knuckles and dripped onto the floor of the corridor.

She had rejected him even before he could say anything else. After he had been there for her when she was in distress, she acted like it had never happened. He had thought he had been prepared for her cold shoulder, but with the way he was feeling, he knew that he was far from, and he would never be ready to be turned away by her over and over again.

Tears welled up in his eyes and his hands shook in pain. He closed his silver eyes tightly and tried to get her cruel, amused face out of his mind and he could feel his hot tears run down his cheeks. He was glad he was alone, he would have hated to be caught crying as if he was a small child.

Suddenly he felt something licking his Knuckles and he opened his eyes to see Kathleen's cub sitting in front of him, licking away the blood in a tender way, as if telling him that everything would be alright. Draco let a small smile grace his tearful face. The tiger cub was comforting him the same way he had seen Draco comfort his Mother. He didn't know how Mittens had found him, or knew that he was suffering, but he was glad to have the cub with him, even if Kathleen wasn't with him.

Draco gently stroked the Tiger between his ears and closed his eyes again to rest his aching mind and body. He felt more tears slip down his face as he thought of Kathleen. He had already admitted to himself three weeks ago that he loved the fiery tigress, but he knew that she would reject him. He just proved that to himself and it hurt him even more then he thought it would.

While he sat there crying and feeling sorry for himself, he didn't hear the pair of footsteps approaching him, but he did feel a pair of gentle, warm, arms wrap around him.

His eyes flashed open immediately and saw a mass of gold fire blocking his view of the person's face. But he knew that smell, the smell of Lilies…it was Kathleen kneeling beside him and holding him. All at once he felt lightheaded and his hearts stopped it's aching lament and the tears stopped flowing from his wide silver eyes.

"Kathleen...wha-" he started only to have his question cut short

"I'm Sorry Draco.." she whispered "I shouldn't have been so harsh…you were there for me when I was in pain, but instead of thanking you I cause even more pain to you…I am always trying to distance myself from Slytherin, thinking that hat misplaced me, but the way I have been acting towards you…it seems it put me in the right place." She said, though Draco didn't know whether to take that the right way, but she did have a point, he had caused a lot more pain to others, and now he knew how they felt since he got a taste of his own medicine.

He raised his arms and wrapped them around Kathleen and hugged her back. "And I am sorry if I was the one who caused you to act like that towards me, I know I am not the most pleasant of people." He replied.

Lunch went by pleasantly, Draco was able to persuade Kathleen to sit with him at the Slytherin table and Kathleen told him what had happened in the Dark Arts class that day, Draco couldn't attend since he was helping Professor Snape sort out his potions cupboard. Or in different terms, he had skipped it.

**Kathleen** talked happily with Draco, now that she saw down with him and actually talked, she found out he wasn't as bad as everyone thought he was, though that was his own fault.

Somehow the conversation had slipped to the Triwizard Tournament. And Kathleen's eyes wandered around the Great Hall and locked with Harry's. He had been watching her this entire time, so had Ron and Hermione, the three friends seemed to mouth 'what are you doing?' at the same time and Kathleen just shrugged and turned her attention back to Draco.

"Professor Snape told me there was going to be a Yule Ball to celebrate the Tournament in December." Draco continued and at this his face turned a little pink. "and I know it's really early to ask, but I thought I might before anyone else knows…"

Kathleen looked at Draco a little confused, but she assumed she knew what the question was.

"You want me to go with you?" she asked tilting her head to the side. Already she was forming an answer…she had never been to a ball before, sure her old school had lame school dances, but an actual ball was a different story. When she saw Draco nod she picked up a piece of hair and started twirling it around in her fingers. She and Draco might have just found a new Friendship, but the prospect of a ball was very tempting and besides he was the first one to ask.

"Alright, I don't see why not." She said smiling at the blonde dropping her piece of hair and picked up her sandwich, which consisted mostly of meat, and munched on it to satisfy her stomach.

**Draco **mentally cheered, he was glad Professor Snape had shared this key bit of information before the rest of the school, besides the teachers, knew about it. and it gave him a chance at her before Potter weaseled his way in. Draco could tell Potter liked her, a lot, it was always clear on his face every time she was around and they way he was always trying to keep her away from him. Far from Kathleen's knowledge, there had been several times he had tried to get her attention, but Potter had always been there either blocking the way, or distracting her long enough to make her think that she had only imagined her name being called. He really hated the raven, now that he thought about it a little more.

**Harry** gritted his teeth as he saw Kathleen and Draco come in together, they had been absent for a little while longer before they had shown up, and he watched as Kathleen sat down with the Snake and talked with him. His eyes flashed angrily as he saw a smile on her face as she talked with his enemy. When she finely looked around he was able to catch her attention and he shook his head confused at her.

'What are you doing?' he mouthed and his face flushed when she just shrugged. A black feeling gurgled up from his stomach, he knew what it was, jealousy, and hatred for Malfoy. Also there was one more feeling, and it confused him just a little but it was there, possessiveness. For the past several weeks he had been shielding Kathleen from Malfoy and the other Slytherin students before she got sucked into their ways. But here it was, all his hard work coming to waste before his eyes.

He clenched his fists as he saw Malfoy ask her something, he could tell it was a personal question because the Snake's face flushed and he looked away from Kathleen. His eyes flicked to Kathleen, she seemed to be thinking it over, whatever it was, and then after a minute she nodded and smiled once more at Malfoy.

Harry's eyes widened and the emotions running through him made his scar hurt, he had never felt these things before and they made his mind go wild. What seemed to be hundreds of miles away, another person, or creature, felt the same things Harry did, though dismissed them immediately as they faded quickly.

"Harry?" he heard Hermione say quietly, she had been watching the battle on his face as he watched Kathleen with Malfoy. "You alright?"

Harry blinked as he heard his name and he turned away from the scene before him to look at his friends.

"Ya' 'Arry, waz up wiff you…"Ron asked though a mouthful of food. he continued after he swallowed. "you look as if something crawled up your ass and bit you."

"Sorry guys, guess I got lost in thought…" Harry mumbled grabbing a sandwich and biting into it and chewed with a sigh.

"You know, even if she becomes friends with Malfoy, doesn't mean she'll suddenly leave us, and we won't leave her, who she talks with is her choice." Hermione said trying to comfort Harry. "right Ron?" she asked looking at the red head.

"Yeah…well, I suppose if she wants to talk to that sniveling piece of sh-"

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed frowning at him.

"I mean, yeah, she isn't suddenly going to become a Slytherin overnight." He finished stuffing his face with more food.

Harry sighed again, he had to agree with his friends, though he was wondering what question Kathleen had agreed to, the way Malfoy had blushed, it was defiantly something personal. He would have to confront her later.

The rest of the Week passed pleasantly for Kathleen as she spent the time with Draco, thought she felt she was neglecting Harry, Ron, and Hermione. She was making her way down the corridors one Saturday afternoon, on the first of October, to find them when Professor Dumbledore stopped her.

"Kathleen, do you think I could have a word with you? Unless you are busy, I do not wish to delay you." He said kindly and smiled when Kathleen turned to face him.

"No Headmaster, I'm not busy, what do you wish to speak to me about?"she asked curiously tilting her head to the side as she usually did when she was confused.

"If you would follow me to my Office, I do not wish this to lay on prying ears." He said and lead Kathleen down the corridors conversing with her about the weather.

When they arrived at the Gargoyle that blocked the way to his Office, Dumbledore dismissively told it the password and it jumped aside letting the two gain access to the spiral staircase.

Once inside Kathleen sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desk and Professor Dumbledore took his place behind it. he crossed his fingers together and rested his elbows on the desk and looked at Kathleen from above his half moon spectacles his bright blue eyes locking with her green ones.

"Now, how are you doing in your classes? And I don't mean academically, your Teachers are very pleases with your progress, even Professor Snape had some good things to say, and that is very rare." The Headmaster started raising a brow when Kathleen blushed a very faint pink.

"Well…Sir…I enjoy a lot of my classes, including Potions, and thought I thought it was going to be very difficult since there is a lot I don't know, it has really been…kinda…" Kathleen had to think of the right word. "easy I suppose…" she finished

"Indeed, I have seen your grades so far, and I have to say you're as brilliant as I hoped you were going to be. Your Great Grandfather would be proud." Dumbledore said smiling kindly as Kathleen. "And indeed you put Mrs. Granger to shame and you have picked all this up so soon and it's not even half a year yet."

"Thank you sir." Said Kathleen sitting up a little straighter since he had mentioned her Grandfather.

"Also, Moody has told me about your strong will, though I wish he would have waited for a few more lessons before having you endure the stress of the curses, even learning about them, but I am pleased to hear of your progress in his class, even if it seems to be your least favorite subject." The Headmaster continued.

"It's not the subject sir…it's Professor Moody himself…I should know myself that a happy moment can turn horrible in an instant…but he seems so…so…"

"Paranoid." Dumbledore finished for her and sighed when she nodded. "Indeed he is, he used to be an Auror for the Ministry of Magic, a type of magical police man in Muggle terms, There was a Wizard in his time, by the Name of Voldemort, gave the ministry a lot of trouble several years back, and did such terrible thing he and his follower, known as Death Eaters."

"Who is this Voldemort sir? I think Moody had hinted at him in class and kept staring at Harry most of the time as if he had something to do with it." Kathleen asked hoping to find out even more about this magical world.

Dumbledore stared at Kathleen for a very short moment. "What do you know about Harry so far?"

"That he is a good friend, more of the leader type and has green eyes and black hair. And hates Draco's guts…" she mumbled adding the last part in order to have something else she knew about him. "all in all sir…not as much as I want to."

"And what of Mr. Malfoy?" Dumbledore asked raising both eyebrows.

"That there is more to him then people see on the surface…and he is just a good of a friend as Harry is, but he hates harry…and really I can't figure out why…if they actually talked like decent human beings to each other then maybe they could get along." She answered still mumbling.

Dumbledore sighed and stood from his seat, clasping his hand behind himself and staring at one of the moving portraits of the former Headmaster Professor Dippit.

"Let me tell you a story Kathleen, About Voldemort, and soon about Harry and even Draco has his part to play." And Slowly and carefully Dumbledore told her about a boy named Tom Riddle, now Lord Voldemort, and about Draco's Father who had been a Death Eater. He paused here and there letting the information sink in before he then told her about Harry, The Boy Who Lived.

"I knew immediately he would take interest in you, you know why?" Dumbledore asked. When Kathleen shook her head he smiled softly. "Because you look like his mother, though you have no family relations, you look a great deal like Lily Evens and have her mind and talent in magic as well. It's almost as if you are her, just a different name and family."

Kathleen looked at her hands tears streaking down her face, the whole story was sad and it tore her heart apart, even Voldemort's…Tom Riddle's story was sad. "Voldemort…he's coming back isn't he? He's not dead like people believe." She suddenly stated remembering the story of Harry's first and second year.

"Yes I believe he is, but I have gotten very off track, the reason I brought you here in the first place is I wanted to ask you what you thought about the Triwizard Tournament."

"Well, I wish I was of age…I would love to be in it." she exclaimed in a wishful voice. "It sounds very dangerous but it just makes me want to be in it even more to prove that Hogwarts in the best." She continued and blushed when Professor Dumbledore chuckled.

"Well you might get your chance, I have talked with the other teachers and even the ministry, and through your high progress rate an intelligence even more impressive than most adult wizards they have agreed to bend the rules a little . Now this only means your name will be able to be registered, and you will be able to participate if your name is chosen. This of course is you decision, if you wish me to I can put your name into the tournament."

Kathleen face brightened and she beamed up at the Headmaster and nodded excitedly. "I would love that Professor, thank you so much." She exclaimed and jumped from her seat and hugged the old man, who returned the hug.

When the students came down for dinner Kathleen sat herself next to Draco, to the disappointment of Harry who had been trying to get her to sit at the Gryffindor table like she used to.

Kathleen told Draco what Dumbledore told her, at least the part about the Tournament. Though Draco didn't look to happy instead he looked worried. He was happy that she was given the chance, but the more he thought about it, the more it made him worry that she would get hurt.

"Don't get me wrong, but aren't you afraid of getting hurt?" Draco asked her.

"Well yeah, there is no gain without a little pain." She said and shrugged. "But don't worry I'll be okay, thanks for be concerned though." She said and kissed him on the cheek making him blush and look away. A few people were staring at Kathleen in mid-bite but looked away when Draco gave them an icy glare, daring them to say anything.

**Okay, chapter four up and running….sorry it ended so suddenly, I didn't know how to continue this chapter, so off to the next one. **

**R&R PLEASE! If you are actually reading this! And ideas for future chapters are welcome. **


	5. Lions & Tigers &Dragons Oh Dear

I Think I Kinda Like You

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does.

YAY chapter five, hope all of you like it cause I lost some sleep over it before I went to Work

Chapter Five: Lions, and Tigers, and…Dragons?…oh Dear

Kathleen groaned as she rested her head against the Slytherin table, she dearly wanted to sit with her friends, not that Draco wasn't her friend, but Ron was being such an asshole. If he wasn't glaring daggers at Krum for staring at Hermione funny he was glaring at her or Harry. And it was all because the prick was jealous at the both of them. Why exactly? Because they had been excepted into the tournament by the goblet when they were supposed to be underage.

Kathleen's head lifted then smacked back down on the wood surface.

"You Okay?" Draco inquired jolted out of his conversation with Durmstrang's famous student Victor Krum.

"No good, shit eating, cock sucking little worm baby..YOUR PARENTS WERE NEVER MARRIED!" She yelled the last part out to the sneering red head as her temper rose to new heights. The teachers and students across the great hall stopped to stare at her in shock then to look at Ron Weasley who had turned pale when he knew her outburst was at him.

Hermione couldn't hide her stifled giggle and she had to turn away and the rest of the Gryffindor table roared out and applauded the Fiery girl as she stormed out of the great hall before a teacher could apprehend her.

**Draco** blinked in shock at her random outburst and then was able to smooth his features back out to indifference.

"It was only a question…" he said plainly and waited till the Great Hall settled down before he excused himself from the table and Krum's presence to seek out his friend only to stop and clench his fists as he heard laughter around the corner. When he managed to peek around the stone, he found Potter…already with his girl. Well he liked to think of her as his girl, god forbid she found that out..he wouldn't hear the end of it, though he had never been brave, although to really say it to her face and see if he would get a good or bad reaction. Still though it made his blood boil to see her with Potter.

"That was the most hilarious thing I have ever seen…you should have seen his face up close, he turned so white he could have been mistaken as a bed sheet. " **Harry** exclaimed laughing and holding his stomach.

"Serves the asshole right, who does he think he is anyway? I mean for one, it was the teachers idea to enter me in, but yours was a total fluke, and again the teachers decided it would be fine…I mean come on…if he got any greener I would have steamed him with the rest of my vegetables." Kathleen said crossing her arms. "Still though...didn't mean to shout so loud…it was meant to be a mental thing…guess I was really…scratch that, AM, really angry with the bastard."

"He deserves it, if he can't pull his little green monster out of his arse, he might as well deal with a little embarrassment from it once and a while. " to Harry it felt strange talking about Ron, his supposedly best friend, like he was another Malfoy, but in all honesty at least the Snake had enough manners to try and hide his jealousy. Speaking of Malfoy…

"Hey Kathleen…Mind if I ask you a question?" He asked relaxing his posture and tried to seem a little calm.

"Well…you already did…but if you want to ask another….shoot." she said glad to take her mind of Ron.

"Err…I couldn't help but notice…that Malfoy had asked you something…about a week ago…I know it's not my business…but I just wanted to know, what it was…" he mumbled his eyes slowly going to the floor and his cheeks flushed.

"Your right about one thing Potter, it isn't your Business."

Harry heard Kathleen sigh and turned around to see Malfoy stalking around the corner glaring at him and his mouth was curled up in a sneer.

"I don't remember asking you Malfoy…" Harry sneered back both boys sizing each other up as if ready to fight over Kathleen.

**Kathleen **groaned again and slapped her forehead letting her hand slide down her face, the testosterone was suffocating.

"You know what boys, Your Parents were never married too…" She grumbled and stalked off towards the dungeons. If only they knew how much both of them really had in common…but if they wanted to act like uncivil monkeys she would let them, and they could do it _WITHOUT_ her help.

**Draco **and Harry stared after their Friend in shock, slight hurt echoed upon both boys faces.

"Good going potter, you chased off my girl with your stupid questions…" Draco hissed clenching his fists.

"_YOUR_ girl? What right do you have to call her that? She is my friend I can ask her anything I want..."

Draco really didn't mean to use the term, **my girl**, to describe Kathleen but his face broke into a dark smirk as he glared at Potter, why not play a little. "Oh? You didn't notice with your poor eye-sight and lack of intelligence…Kathleen is my girlfriend now, I suppose that also answers your stupid question." Draco said in a matter of fact voice that also dripped with venom.

His face showed satisfaction when Potter began to turn purple.

"You are a lying fuck you know that? Why would she go out with your twisted ass." Potter hissed clenching his fists together, though Draco didn't take that as a warning.

"Oh really? And I suppose that is why she sit all the way with me at the Slytherin table, where she belongs, you know, by my side and away from you and your mud blood friends. I really do enjoy her company, and she seems to enjoy mine a little more than yours I dare say myself." He drawled laughing at Potter's face as it had gone from purple to maroon, but he wasn't laughing long…a hard force suddenly met his face and his pale features were rearranged for a second time that year…and it was only the beginning, Potter was on top of him in a second tearing at the Blondes robes and his fist flying at every inch of his upper body that the raven could reach.

Suddenly the trashing stopped when Draco heard a cry of shock, he managed to open a swollen eye to see Kathleen standing there her angelic mouth gapped open and her eyes were staring daggers into Potter to pushed off of Draco and staggered away from him sputtering apologies to her for losing his temper.

**Kathleen** had left in a rage only to find out she had left her bag in the Great Hall, going to retrieve it she ran into the two boys she had left behind, one was getting the shit beaten out of him and the other, giving the beatings. She let out a cry that made Harry let go of Draco.

"I Can't Believe this! You two are the most idiotic, selfish little cock suckers I have ever had the dis-pleasure of meeting!" She screamed just as Professor McGonagall rushed in to hear her foul New-York language and see Draco bloodied on the ground and Harry looking sheepish and ashamed as the Red Haired girl glared both of them down.

"You three! Into my Office now!" Professor McGonagall had barked when she took a better look at the situation. Kathleen groaned and followed the Professor after she helped Draco to his feet and hung her head. She didn't notice the two boys behind her that also looked ashamed, though one of them was trying his best not to cry from the pain in his ribs and face and even his mental state, though potter attacked him, he was still rewarded with Kathleen's ungraceful insults.

It was a rainy Thursday afternoon, Kathleen scribbled on the black board in McGonagall's Classroom while Harry and Draco scrubbed every inch of the stone floor, washed desks and polished the Deputy Headmistresses Trophies.

After Kathleen felt like her hand was about to fall off McGonagall placed a hand on her shoulder and studied her handy work. The word scribbled on the board were a single line repeating over and over again. _'I will not call my fellow classmates foul names.'_

"Alright Miss Grey, I think that is enough lines, you are free from Detention, go to Dinner." She said and Kathleen let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you Professor…" Kathleen said and grabbed her bag from the floor and turned to face Harry and Draco, since she hadn't actually been their during the fight she was only punished for cursing, but the other two would have to do the Other classrooms over the week too.

"See you later guys." She said giving them both a peck on the cheek when they stood from their scrubbing positions on the floor. She then rushed out before the Professor made her stay longer.

The small kiss seemed to make the boys even more energized as they finished cleaning the classroom before rushing off to Dinner with the okay of McGonagall.

Three days later Kathleen was once again yelling at Draco and it was in front of about thirty people, including Harry and Hermione who she had been talking with just minutes before.

She held something in her hand and she was gripping it tightly and was waving in front of Draco. A closer look at it would reveal it to be a shining badge with magically changing words. "Support Kathleen Grey and Cedric Diggory, the REAL Hogwarts Champions." Then the words changed. "Potter Stinks."

"Why would I want this! Why would you even think about giving it you me you poor excuse for a human being!" she shrieked throwing the badge to the ground. "Harry is my friend, whether you like it or not, and he always will be, I am not going to flaunt around like the rest of your scumbag friends trying to humiliate him further with this stupid thing." She then stomped on the button and glared daggers at Draco who winced at her words but didn't openly show that he was slightly hurt by her words.

"It's not my fault the badge says nothing but the truth." He replied in a cold indifferent voice that had a hint of false amusement behind it. He was trying to impress everyone around him with his calm demeanor in front of the wild girl, who really scared everyone else when she was pissed. "Besides I thought you would take it as a compliment to be shown support by your fans." He continued with a smirk, but inside his head he could already she he made a mistake for the girls face turned even more furious, almost wild, like a tigers.

"FANS! YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOU SLITHERING PILE OF SNAKES!" she screamed. "Let me tell you this _Malfoy, I_ was placed in your house because of a fluke, the only reason they are supporting me is because they hate Harry even more and they want to show off that a Slytherin is in the Tournament, all your doing is boosting your own pride at the expense of Harry and myself, so why don't you piss off and slither into whatever dark pit you slithered out of." She hissed and whipped around stomping back over to Harry and Hermione and grabbed them both by their robes and dragged them off angry tears filling her eyes. She really hated Draco sometimes.

**Harry **and Hermione couldn't help but feel sorry for Malfoy but at the same time feel good that he had been put in his place by someone he liked. Though they were worried for their Friend who seemed to have upset herself over the simple button.

"Really Kathleen, I'm used to it, you didn't have to do that for me." Harry said as they sat in the library reading over the previous histories of the Triwizard Tournament. When she didn't look at him he placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not lying you know, Malfoy and me have been at each other's throats since first year, I knew he would pull something like this sooner or later."

"I know…" Kathleen said setting down her book with a sigh. "but, I just don't like it...It doesn't matter which of us Hogwarts champions win the Tournament, but as long as it's our school I shouldn't see why Draco and the rest of the snakes shouldn't try to set differences aside for a while, at least till it's all over…I am just afraid if Draco keeps acting like this he is on a one way ticket to becoming a dark wizard…like…You know…" she couldn't make herself say the name, not out of fear of the man, but her Friend that suffered so much under the Dark Lords power.

"Nah, he might have a stick shoved up his ass, but he doesn't seem to have the mindset to become like Voldemort, he's too afraid…besides, he was taught who to like and who not to like. While he pisses me off to the point I want to ram that stick even farther up his ass, I pity him, sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I accepted his friend ship first year…I could have been friends with everyone still, kinda like you I suppose…but I didn't so it sort of my fault he acts like that around me." Harry said picking up a new book and scanned through the pages.

**Kathleen** stared at Harry, that was the first time she heard him speak about Draco like he was a person, not a creature. She couldn't help but smile at him and hug his giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"you can be really amazing sometimes, you know that Harry." She said and stood up gathering a few of the books. "Okay, I'm going to head back down to the dungeons for some alone time, I need a shower and a nap." She said stretching a little before going up to Madam Pince, the librarian, and confirm with her that she would be able to check out the books.

**Harry** blushed and placed a hand to his cheek when his friend left the library. She had called him amazing, and he liked the way she had said him name, it gave him butterflies. He grinned as he daydreamed that the kiss had been a little farther to the left of his cheek instead only for it to be interrupted when Hermione poked him with her toe from under the table. She had been so quiet she forgot she was there.

"What?" he asked a bit flustered looking out the window trying not to make eye contact with her.

"I saw that, you were daydreaming of an actual Kiss weren't you?" Hermione asked teasing him.

"No…" he mumbled "Maybe…yeah…" he said giving up and looking at her.

"If you like her why don't you say something.."

"I want to, I really do, but…she likes Malfoy…" Harry let his eyes fall to the table and he let out a sigh.

"She likes you too, take it from another girl, if you don't make your move soon, you'll have to be eating Malfoy's dust." Hermione warned. "I can tell you flat out what Malfoy said to you was a lie. If she was his Girlfriend she wouldn't have answered his question with a simple nod, without a blush, it was a different question, one that he might have taken seriously but obviously she just looked curious…"

"how did-" Harry began only to be interrupted with her hand.

"Please Harry, I pay attention. Unlike some people." She said and also stood picking up her set of books and patting Harry on the head starting to walk away, she stopped about two feet away. "Remember, if you don't make your move, Malfoy will, in fact he already is, the race has begun and your lagging behind," with that said she walked out of the library leaving Harry to his thoughts.

The next day in-between classes, Kathleen, Harry, and Hermione found themselves facing Draco in the corridor near the dungeons, once again selling buttons more openly to the other students.

Kathleen had ignored him the day before and was about to ignore him again walking away when she noticed Harry and Hermione had stopped. By the time she knew what happened she heard the word 'Mudblood' and then all hell broke look there was a flash of spells colliding and bouncing off each other, one hit one of Draco's Gorilla's and the other hit Hermione.

Kathleen whipped around, she noticed Goyle was panicking about the boils forming on his face and Hermione was clutching her mouth tears coming to her eyes as he front teeth began to elongate themselves quickly.

"Hermione!" she and Harry yelled but before they could reach her Ron was already there trying to remove her hand in a panic. Kathleen remembered he had been talking to Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan against the wall when the fiasco happened. She had been ignoring him to.

"And what is all this noise about?" said a soft, deadly voice. Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations.

Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Draco "Explain."

"Potter attacked me, sir -"

"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted.

" and he hit Goyle! Look! "

Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi. "Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape said calmly.

"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron said. "_Look_!"

He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth , she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar.

Snape just stared at Hermione with a passive uncaring face. "I see no real difference…" He said coldly

Though Kathleen had a few things she wanted to spit at her Head of House, it was Harry and Ron's turn to sound like New Yorkers as they told Snape what they really thought of him, though the corridors echoed to much so that the words were mixed and covered, Kathleen could tell that Snape got the gist and took fifty points away from Gryffindor and watched as Hermione, tears streaming down her face ran away from the crown towards the infirmary.

Kathleen turned to follow her when Snape's cold voice stopped her.

"And where do you think you're going Miss Grey, Class is about to begin."

Kathleen whipped around to glare at the Professor, she didn't care if she got detention for what she was about to say.

"I am going to check on my friend since you refuse to help her. I don't know what is wrong with this entire house but I can assure you, I will not sit here and let it happen quietly like the rest of the school tends to." She growled her bright green eyes glinting angrily.

Snape watched the girl stalk off down the corridor, he was a little shocked, no student have ever stood up to him before, besides Potter, but for some reason he didn't feel the need to punish her, not for being a Slytherin, but because he had seen that face before on an almost identical face several years back when he was a student himself. Quickly the Professor composed himself and directed, not to smoothly, the other Students into the class room to start Potions class.

Kathleen sat on the opposite bed in the infirmary watching as the nurse shrank Hermione's teeth back to normal, well sort of, Hermione let her keep going until they were smaller than they used to be, not so large and awkward.

"How's that dear?" Madam Pomfrey asked and Hermione nodded thanking her.

"You okay Mione?" Kathleen asked using a nick-name for her friend, she had been using it for a week now and Hermione didn't seem to mind.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks for coming with me…it helps." Her friend said with a sigh.

"I'll kill Draco for this, Hell, I'll kill Harry for falling for his shit." Kathleen said clenching her jaw. "What the hell were they thinking." She grumbled and looked up when Hermione snickered.

"You really like those two don't you…" she said giving Kathleen a grin, mainly to show off her new teeth as much as possible, they improved her natural good looks.

Kathleen blushed and looked at the floor clicking the toes of her shoes together in thought.

"I suppose I do…Harry is kind-hearted and a good friend, and when the stick up Draco's ass isn't being shoved farther he is sweet and can be s kind-hearted as Harry, though I think I'm the only one who has seen that…other than that he's just an ass." She concluded with a sigh.

"Who would you pick?" Hermione asked.

"What?" Kathleen looked up at her in shock.

"You heard me, who would you pick…if they asked you…who would you choose."

Again Kathleen looked at her feet. "I don't know, neither have said a thing to me, I guess I'm just waiting for either one of them…though even then I don't think I would be able to choose Hell I'm almost fifteen and even then I still have two years to decide. Tell you what, once seventh year rolls around, I'll tell you then. That way I'll be a little more prepared for this whole choice thing, I have only known Harry and Draco for only a month and a half I'll get to know them even better, then I'll tell you."

"Promise?" Hermione asked holding out her pinky to Kathleen.

Kathleen beamed at her and wrapped her pinky around Hermione's "Cross my heart and hope to die…thought I refuse to do the needle thing, I hate needles…"

Both girls laughed and a contract was made.

Dragons…it just had to be dragons.

**Kathleen** stood in the middle of the arena facing a large Norwegian Ridgeback Dragon. It had its head lowered and it was growling low at her as it crouched over it eggs protectively. Kathleen could see the golden one clearly glinting behind the Female Dragon's left leg.

Mittens stood beside her his hackles raised ad he was growling back at the giant winged lizard. The little tiger had grown some from the time they arrived at Hogwarts, he now came up to her thigh just below her hip.

Around her the crowd was cheering, even the Slytherins. Though people from the other schools took to booing and hissing instead.

Kathleen sighed, she would have to move sometime. But what could she do? Harry had his broom, and the other champions had some skill against these creatures, she had no plan, and no information about magical creature. She hadn't been paying attention to Hagrid during class, and now she was paying for it.

She looked down at her tiger and rubbed him in between his ears, mainly to calm herself down. That's when she had an idea, whenever she faced an angry tiger she would sing, and it would instantly calm them, or at least delay them from ripping her face off.

_Areir 's me tearnnamh ar neoin  
>Ar a' dtaobh eile 'en teora seo thios<br>Do thaobhnaigh an speirbhean im chomhair  
>Dfhaig taomanac, breote, lag tinn<br>Le haon ghean da mein is da clo  
>Da breithre 's da beol tanai binn<br>Do leimeas fe dhein dul 'na treo  
>Is ar Eireann ni neosainn ce hi.<em>

_Oh last night in strange fields as I roamed  
>Such a vision I passed on my way<br>A young woman so fair to behold  
>That in seconds my heart was astray<br>Oh she reached out a welcoming hand  
>But I knew that it never could be<br>And before I could kiss her sweet lips  
>She had vanished forever from me.<em>

As Kathleen sang the Dragon's head swayed back and forth sleepily and its eyes drifted closed as it listened to the soft tones of Kathleen's voice. the audience seemed to calm down as well, the cheering stopped and so did the hissing. One boy in particular also closed his eyes and listened intently remembering that same voice from down by the lake.

**Draco** couldn't help but enjoy the sound of Kathleen's voice, though a moment ago he was watching her intently with fear and worry for the sake of her life, now he was relaxed and calm, just as if someone had cast the Imperious curse on him. He slowly closed his eyes just as the dragon had and listened to the soft melody ringing in his ears. She sang fist in a language he did not understand but when she began to sing in English suddenly he felt his heart tighten, as if he were the lover that just lost his love and he knew that, from what Kathleen had told him, it was a lament her father sang when her mother had died. Draco's eyes opened again and he watched Kathleen sneak around the dragon towards the golden egg as she continued to sing.

He couldn't help but want to go out there and embrace her, all her songs that she seemed to sing were somehow related to her mother. He wished he was that close to his own, even if she was still alive.

Kathleen watched the Dragon carefully as it fell asleep, Mittens also watched it, thought he was small he was ready to distract it if it decided to wake back up. But as Kathleen reached the egg nothing happened, the Dragon's chest rose up and down slowly as its head lowered and just before it laid onto the nest Kathleen was able to grab the egg and back away from the Mother.

When Kathleen stopped singing she let out a sigh of relief as the Dragon continued to sleep. She took another step back thanking god the Arena was mostly dirt and rock, it helped soften her footsteps considerably. Feeling proud of herself, she turned around to walk away when she ended up kicking a smaller rock and it smacked against another. She froze, there was a sudden growling behind her and Mittens had let out a warning hiss.

Kathleen turned her head and looked up to see the Mother Dragon's head just a few feet above her, the dragons lips raised away from its teeth and a growl was rumbling though her throat and exited out of the mouth that would be Kathleen's doom if she didn't do something.

Suddenly the Dragon opened it's mouth and Kathleen had only seconds to roll away when a burst of flame erupted from its mouth.

"PROTAGO!" Kathleen shouted putting a shield up around herself as some of the flames bounced off the rocks and shot towards her. She watched the dragon intently as she tried to figure out what to do next.

She frowned in confusion when she heard shouting from the side of the arena, it sounded like…

"LOOK OUT!" Draco shouted, his voice filled with shock and fear.

Kathleen turned just in time to receive a blow to her middle from the dragons tail, causing her to fly back and land harshly against a pile of rock. She cried in pain and grasped her stomach tightly with one arm, but managed to hang on to the egg in another. She felt a trickle of blood run down from her mouth and she gritted her teeth. She felt a great heat heading towards her and once again she was able to roll out of the way just in time for the jet of flame to hit when she once had been.

She could help but let out another cry because of the movement, her back hurt, and her stomach was in extreme pain.

The Dragon whipped it's head around and raised one of its legs and brought it down on top of Kathleen to hold her down so she would stop moving. Kathleen felt the heat building as the Dragon opened her mouth about to let out another stream of fire. Kathleen closed her eyes tightly knowing she was doomed.

When the flames didn't come though, she heard an angry roar of two different types and she heard the sound of ripping flesh. Her eyes flew open to see Mitten attached to the soft flesh of the dragon's neck. His teeth were sunk in and his front and back claws tore mercilessly into the Dragon, who thrashed and tossed it's head around trying to use its front legs to get the angry tiger off.

Kathleen knew they had to get out of there, now. She stood despite the pain and let out a loud whistle. Immediately Mittens detached from the Dragon and both of them ran for the exit of the Arena the golden egg clutched tightly to Kathleen's chest.

The Dragon did not pursue them, instead it slunk back to its nest and let out rumbling growls of pain as blood pooled from its neck, it wasn't fatal, but it hurt.

As soon as Kathleen left the arena and was safely in the Champions tent with the rest of them.

Harry immediately ran over to her as she sunk to the floor holding her middle and letting the golden egg roll away from her.

"Kathleen! Are you alright? What happened." Harry asked frantically wincing as Kathleen rolled up her shirt to look at her stomach. A large black and red bruise had started to form nearly covering her entire middle section. She winced in pain as she touched it. "We should get you to the healers tent." He said gently and gently pulled her up trying to support her weight.

"I'll help." said a deeper voice to Kathleen's left. She turned her head weakly to see the other Hogwarts champion standing there, Cedric Diggory, this was the first time she had seen him, hell she hadn't even been paying attention to him in the tent when they were given their little dragon figurines and told what they were to do.

Kathleen felt him wrap her arm around his neck and one of his own arms around the middle of her back. Harry had done the same thing on her right, and though it made her back hurt from the contact, she was grateful she had help.

"Thank you…" she mumbled as they lead her to the healers tent, where they placed her on one of the cots carefully and watched her as she passed out.

Both boys let out sighs and felt a nudge at the back of their knees. They look down to see a mid-sixed Tiger, covered in Dragon blood, try and push past them. That when they realized they were blocking the entrance.

**Harry **smiled down at Mittens and rubbed him in-between his ears before letting him past so he could go sit with his human mother.

"Just don't lay on her boy, she is hurt badly" he warned the tiger who licked Kathleen's hand before letting out a small chuff of agreement and laid down beside her.

"I have never seen a Tiger act like that before, I thought the rumors about him was a bunch of hogwash." Cedric Diggory commented staring at the large cat before him.

"Yeah and just think he's only half grown…" Harry mumbled. "I'm surprised you never saw him, he's in the Great Hall with her during meal times, well sometimes…most the time it think he sleeps in the dungeons on her bed."

Cedric just nodded his eyes moving up from Mitten's to Kathleen. "You know, though she's a bit beat up fright now, she really is Beautiful, this is the first time I have seen her up close, you're really lucky Harry."

"How so?" Harry asked staring at the sleeping girl himself.

"Are you really that blind man? No wonder you need glasses." Cedric said shaking his head. "just cause I haven't seen her tiger I have seen her around with your group a lot…she really like you, from the way she looks at you and talks to you…it's obvious she does." He told the raven with a grin and a nudge.

Harry stared at Cedric for the longest time.

"That's what Hermione told me…there is a problem though…"

"What?"

"Draco Malfoy…." Harry said the name in a hiss.

"Oh…" Cedric said blandly though he nodded in understanding. "Well, common, before the nurse gets here, we should get back to the champions tent and wait for further instructions. " he said grabbing Harry and pulling him away from the tent until the boy followed on his own looking slightly depressed.

**Draco** sat back in his seat with a sigh of relief, the rest of the stands cheering or booing at the girl's success. He should have been cheering too, but he had been so overcome with fear, he decided to just let the feeling that she was safe rush over him.

He watched the judges talking among themselves before sending up the large ribbons that held her score, Hogwarts cheered even louder. She had gotten a near perfect score, Draco guessed she hadn't gotten full points because the Dragon had gotten hurt, but it was higher than any of the other Champion's scores.

His eyes scanned the arena stands when his eyes locked with Granger's. He was about to sneer when he saw her make a fast gesture toward the tents just outside the arena. He shook his head at her confused. He didn't know why he bother to have this silent conversation with the muggle-born.

When she gestured again he knew she wanted him to go down there. His heart suddenly stopped as he realized she was gesturing towards the medical tent. That's right Kathleen had gotten hurt, badly, from what it looked like. His eyes narrowed at the bushy-haired girl, but he nodded in understanding anyway and made his way out of the stands. He wasn't sure if he was allowed there or not, but he didn't care he had to make sure she was okay.

He arrived just in time to see Potter and Diggory walking away from the tent. Quickly he rushed in before they could turn their heads back if they felt the need to.

Once he was inside he heard a chuff and saw the Mittens had raised his head to look at him. Draco could have sworn the Tiger was smiling at him.

He walked over and gently rubbed the Tiger on his head. "Hey boy, how she doing?" he asked looking at Kathleen's sleeping form. He could see the edge of a bruise just under her shirt and he winced, he wished he had warned her sooner, but he had barely caught the tail moving towards her till the last second. He looked around and found a small wooden chair off to the side and pulled it over to Kathleen's bed and sat down slipping his hand in hers and stroked the top of her hand with his thumb.

He smiled when Mittens licked his other hand that was resting on his knees. At the feeling of the rough tongue Draco couldn't help but chuckle. It always ticked when the Tiger did that. He moved his hand down and scratched behind the large cat ears.

He was able to sit there for a few more minutes before Madam Pomfrey rushed it and shooed him out, along with Mittens.

"You can visit her later in the Hospital wing, for now, go back with the rest of them to the school and wait." She said in a commanding voice.

Draco sighed and looked down at Mittens who stood beside him.

"Ready to go back?" he asked and smirked when the Tiger chuffed again. It felt right to have the big cat beside him as he turned around and walked away towards the castle, Mittens prowling at his side.

**YAY CHAPTER FIVE! I had some fun with this one, hopefully I can have fun with all of them. **

**For those of you who like the twilight BOOKS check out my new Fan fiction **_**Blood Red**_**. Again it features Kathleen as the main character. I'm not going to tell you a lot about it, and even if you don't like twilight you might enjoy it. (I never really like twilight myself)**

**R&R and hope you enjoy!**


	6. The Goblin King and the Wizard Howl

**I Think I Kinda Like You**

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does.**

**Here we go again!**

**Don't worry to much about this chapter, its just some random drabble I came up with, nothing to important, next chapter will be back on the story line and a little better then this, I just wrote this half dead lol.**

_Chapter 6: The Goblin King and the Great Wizard Howl_

**Kathleen** winced as Hermione hugged her, she had just come out of the hospital wing, and though she had been 'healed' she still had a fair sized bruise on her mid torso and it was a bit touchy.

"oh sorry about that." Hermione said with a small apologetic smile. "I'm just glad to see your out of there." She finished

"It's okay, I can't say I have had worse, but I suppose it wasn't so bad if I survived it." Kathleen said grinning at her friends. Harry was there too, but he had leaned against the wall while Kathleen and Hermione talked. He looked up when Kathleen approved him.

"I heard what you did with the horntail, I didn't see much, but from what I heard you were either brilliant or just showing off, though I think at those times I pick Brilliant." Kathleen commented beaming at her friend that gave her and equally bright smile.

"Thanks I heard you were great too, I heard your voice all the way from the stadium, I am surprised the dragon woke back up." He replied chuckling quietly as she blushed.

"Yeah well…Mittens did the rest in the end…" she mumbled modestly "Speaking of which...Where is Mittens?" she asked looking around Harry's feet to see her beloved tiger wasn't there.

Harry sighed and his smiled dropped.

"He's been tagging along beside Malfoy and his goons, won't leave the jerk for anything. I hope he's being fed." Harry grumbled, he had tried to sway the Tiger over to him a few times behind Draco's back with no anvil. While Mittens had always seemed to take a few steps away from Draco before deciding that he didn't want to and trotting away from the raven.

Kathleen decided to ignore Harry's last statement.

"Oh…well…as long as he isn't running around causing trouble I guess it's fine." She said and looked off down the corridors wondering where Draco was now with her baby. "Anyway, any chance at something to eat…I am famished." She suddenly said making the smile on Harry's face come back to life.

"Yeah, lunch hasn't even started yet, so I think we will make it in time." He said and pushed off the wall and started walking down the corridor. He started talking about the Golden egg and told Kathleen the secret about it, apparently she had been out for a few days more then she thought, so he had been able to figure it out…well with the help of Cedric Diggory. After a while Kathleen had tuned out of his talking, he hadn't told her what the egg said since he thought she should find out herself.

Hermione nudged her as they walked. She had been thinking about who all came to visit her while she was in her little sleep but had been pulled out of her thoughts by her Bushy-haired friend.

"Don't worry, Malfoy remembered to visit once and a while, and ignore what Harry said, I saw him slipping Mittens some meat under the table during meals. The only thing you have to worry about is a fat and spoiled kitten." Hermione said quietly as if reading Kathleen's mind.

Kathleen glanced over at Harry who was still talking and gave Hermione a grin.

"Thanks for keeping an eye out for me." She whispered back and walked into the Great Hall with the two of them.

Harry seemed to become a little depressed, to Kathleen's eye, as her friend glanced around the Hall. It only had a few students for now, but it would get full in the next fifteen minutes.

"So…I expect your going to sit with Malfoy again?" he asked a little nervously.

"Yeah, He has Mittens, and I have yet to talk to him…so…well…yeah…sorry…" Kathleen mumbled looking at her feet.

"Oh…you don't have to be sorry, I can't stop who you make friends with, don't worry about it, as long as you stay yourself." Harry said quickly with a small blush on his face.

"You don't have to worry about that Harry, I Promise you that I won't." With that said Kathleen hugged Hermione and Harry and went to sit at the Slytherin Table to wait for Draco and Mittens.

She drummed her fingers on the table and yawned widely, she was still a little groggy since she had just returned from the Hospital wing. She watched as student after student piled into the Great Hall for lunch and a few of the teachers also appeared at their tables but she had yet to see Draco. She sighed and crossed her arms in front of her on the table and laid her head down on them her eyes locked on the entrances to the Great Hall searching for the Blond until her eyes started drooping and she let out another Yawn.

"Great work out there, I'm shocked the Hortail didn't stay asleep your voice was so beautiful." Kathleen whipped around at the sound of someone talking to her, hoping it was Draco, but when she saw Cedric Diggory instead she just blushed and put a hand behind her head and grinned sheepishly. Now that she wasn't looking at him through pain filled eyes he was absolutely gorgeous. Or it could have just been the after affects of the sleeping potions Madam Pomfrey had continued to give her.

"Oh well, I just did the first thing I could think of, honestly if it hadn't been for Mittens I think I would be Dragon Food by now." Kathleen said modestly lowing her hand and folding it with the other one before resting them on her lap. "Thanks for the help afterwards...i wasn't able to thank you properly since I passed out."

"No problem, But Harry was the one who carried you, he was very worried when you fell unconscious, I nearly had to drag him out before the Nurse showed up."

Kathleen tried to hide her giggle, great now she was giggling around this guy, though who could blame her, he really was handsome and had a charming smile plus he was seventeen and had long gotten rid of his childhood looks, sure Harry and Draco were cute but they still had that child-like quality in them. She mentally smacked herself, she was acting like a twitter-pated Moron, she and Hermione already had this discussion, she liked Draco and Harry. 'but what wrong with a little variety...' she told herself and immediately wanted to kill herself for thinking something like that, she didn't even know if she liked those two in that way. 'Besides he might have a girlfriend already...' she inwardly sighed and then wanted to bash her head against the table, it was the drugs, it had to be...that was the only explanation,wasn't it?

After a few more moments of Silence Cedric shifted a little awkwardly when Kathleen failed to say anything.

"Well, I guess I'll see you around Kathleen." he said and Kathleen merely Nodded as he walked to his house table.

Kathleen let her head fall on to her empty plate and she let out a groan. She was an idiot, a complete and total failure to society and all the was natural.

"Bad day?" she heard someone ask from beside her, she felt the air shift a little an new the person had seated himself, for the voice was male, beside her.

She turned her head to look at the new presence and smiled a little when she saw Draco, but she didn't jump up to hug him like she normally would, just because she was injured and drugged to high heaven didn't mean she forgot about his little stunt with the badge and his attitude about it, in fact she wasn't ready to forgive him until he apologized but she wasn't going to tell him that, if he wanted her forgiveness he would have to figure it out for himself.

"Yeah, something like that..." she replied indifferently picking her head up off the table and looked around Draco's feet. "Where is Mittens?" she asked not seeing her precious Tiger.

"He refused to leave the Dungeons this morning, he's been wandering around it when he wasn't with me, something has been bugging him lately but I'm not sure what. He keeps making that weird chuffing sound here and there." Draco explained a little disappointed that Kathleen didn't greet him like normal, or even say hello at all for that matter. He wondered if she was still mad at him for the whole Badge thing, but even if that was the case he refused to apologize for it, he might as well apologize to Potter himself and that would only happen if Hell froze over.

"He probably misses Jacob and the other Tigers back at my Grandmothers place, if he had missed me he would be here, but I just think its the lack of his own kind that has him down, I might have to leave him home next year, he'll be to big to keep around the school without cause even more commotion. I might have to get a normal pet later on I suppose...something that wont tears a man's head off" Kathleen said reaching over the table to the food that had appeared as soon as all the students had finished piling in.

"Yeah that might ease the mind of the teachers too, while I don't think the Headmaster minds I think the others are a little worried around him. He is getting kind of big anyway and the year has barely begun." Draco said taking a bite out of a turkey sandwich he had made for himself.

"I noticed..." Kathleen mumbled and picked at her own sandwich poking at the beef and turkey, while she was hungry, she didn't think her stomach was ready for a lot of food yet and nothing at the table seemed to fit her appetite, what she wouldn't give for a Hamburger or Pizza, or Buffalo wings, oh how she missed those simple foods. While the food here was great, it just wasn't the comfort food she needed at the moment.

Draco seemed to read her mind as he watched her pick at her food. "If you want I can show you how to get tot he kitchens later on tonight, I'm sure the house elves have some ice cream stashed away somewhere."

Kathleen gave him a grateful smile but didn't say anything as she looked around the hall, everyone was chatting happily about their day in classes or sleeping with their heads on the table trying to get rid of the morning drag left from not enough rest. She was about to lay her head down and fall asleep herself when she felt a flurry of feathers whoosh past her.

Her head snapped upwards and she looked around as dozens, or rather hundreds of Owls filled the room flying around a dropping various letters and packages towards students, some even landed infront of people and helped themselves to food and drink.

"Good mails here, been waiting for a while now." Draco said happily as a large hawk owl landed in front of him. He stroked it's breast feathers and untied the letter from it out stretched leg.

Kathleen was about to say something when two Owls landed in front of her, one of them Carried a letter addressed to her and the other bent over and started to eat her forgotten sandwich. Both of the birds were so beautiful, the one with the letter, a Snowy Owl stood proud, his white feathers shining under the light of the Great Hall, and his amber eyes staring expectantly at Kathleen as it stretched out it's leg. The other was a great horned, a little bigger then the first and his feather let off a rusty-gold shine with flakes of black and white here and there. Kathleen could only stare in shock until the Snowy owl hopped towards her a little more, it's leg still outstretched. Slowly she reached towards it and untied the letter and instead of flying away like most of the owls they both stared at her, as if waiting. Carefully she opened up the folded letter and began to read, she smiled when she saw in her fathers handwriting.

She felt Draco lean in to read over her shoulder and she sighed and began to read it out loud, just loud enough fro Draco to hear as well:

_I was never good at letters, so I'm not going through all that formal 'dear whomever' fluff, it just seems to distant for me, so let me start out by saying I Miss you and Love you and hope you are having a good time there at school. I wish I could see the look on your face when your two new gifts arrive, Dumbledore told me were to find these beasts and it was a little difficult since the place I had to get to was magically sealed, but Dumbledore helped me out and took me there over the weekend, it was strange one moment I'm in New York and the next I'm in the middle of London, I couldn't believe it, you know we might just have to move back to Europe closer to your school and a little less violent. Anyway when I saw these two I knew you would love them both and I couldn't choose between them so I decided that it wouldn't hurt to have two of them, you can send twice as many letters I suppose (haha). And don't worry about the money your Headmaster took care of that too gave me some strange coins, and a lot of them buying these two barely put a dent in the bag he gave me I sent a smaller bag of the coins along with the brown one I hid it behind his leg a little more just in case. Just write to me if you ever need more, I would have sent the whole thing, but I wasn't sure if the beast could carry it. Hope you enjoy your stay there and don't forget to write back to me, though I'll be shocked if you are even able to get this letter, since America is across the sea a good distance away, but I'm sure they will manage. Well enough of my ramblings I have a show to prepare for, though it is a little harder without my favorite assistant, just remember that I will always love you and I hope this letter reaches you safely._

_Your forever loving father ~Jack_

_P.S. Hows Mittens?_

When Kathleen finished and letter she was beaming from ear to ear. She let Draco take the letter and read it over again a confused expression on his face.

"Is your Dad a muggle? What does he mean forgot their magic?" he asked with a small frown, maybe Kathleen was a half blood? There would be no way she could be like Granger, not that he would care if she was Muggle born but he had already written to his father about her and the letter he had just received was from his father stating that he would like to meet this girl sometime (only because Draco had 'forgotten' to mention she was friends with Harry Potter, and he might have 'accidentally' stated that she was from a strong bloodline and he was interested in her. (whoops))

"No, I wouldn't say Muggle, it just that in my Dads family something happened in the past, Probably after my Great, Great, Great Grandfather got out of Hogwarts and Married my Great great, great, Grandmother, and they ended up moving to Ireland, I think it was more like fleeing but the details are fuzzy, but somewhere along that line they must have stopped using magic and it just became like a family Legend, though all of my dads family afterwards became first-rate magicians like a tradition...I suppose now it was too keep the Magic flowing even if it was underused." Kathleen explained. "A lot of the acts we did were impossible to a lot of other Magicians and I suspected something before I got the letter to attend Hogwarts."

"And what about your Mothers side? Surly if she were a witch then you would have known about it." Draco asked suddenly curious about her bloodline.

"I don't know, I might have to look it up in some books or something I mean mother didn't speak much about my Grandparents on her side or any family member actually...i cant remember to much about her since I was little when she died, but I do remember a few things here and there, like how sometime the food would get badly burnt and the next moment it would taste just fine, or if I fell in the park and my knee would be scrapped up and bleeding then suddenly it was only a scar after a would whisper soft words over it, I used to think it was just the 'magic' of being a mom, but I suppose it was actual magic. You know the more I think about it, the more I wonder...why didn't both of my Families use Magic? Or at least why didn't my mother if her side was of magic blood as well."

"Whats was her name? I'm sure my Dad would be willing to look it up at the ministry since he works there." Draco offered and couldn't help but feel happy at the look on her face, it was a mixture of surprise and gratefulness.

"Jasmine Negrand."

"Sounds familiar, I'll ask my dad about it." Draco said grinning.

Kathleen smiled back and returned her attention to the owls. "I wonder what should I name you two..." she mused quietly stroking each on on the breast and earning a pleased trill from each bird. She stared at them for a little while when two names clicked into her head. She looked at the snowy white one. "Jared, I'll call you Jared after the Goblin king from Labyrinth, don't worry he's not really a goblin. And he can turn into a owl at will, though you are much more handsome." she said softly to the white Owl, surprisingly the bird nipped her fingers lovingly as if approving of the name. He attention then turned to the Great Horned owl. He had stopped eating and he stared at her expectantly but didn't look as regal as Jared. She clicked her tongue as she thought and looked into the birds eyes, it had strange flecks of blue in them. "Howl, that shall be your name, though he went by many names Howl was a powerful Wizard and he had a castle that could move from place to place, but even though he was powerful he still had the heart of a child and could be extremely spoiled and selfish sometimes." Kathleen explained to the Owl who blinked in response but puffed out it's chest just a little as if showing off.

"Those are interesting names, but they seem to like them." Draco observed staring at the birds, he looked over at his own Owl, who also had yet to leave, and he saw that the bird had ruffled it's feathers at the other two and clicked it's beak when Jared turned his head to look at him. "Calm down you silly Bird, your just mad cause I never name you." Draco hissed at the animal. It just turned it attention to him and fluffed up a little more. "Great now he's pissed, I hate it when people say Owls cant understand us, if I even look at this bird the wrong way it gets all pissy."

"Well then you should give him a name, then maybe he would feel better." Kathleen suggested with a shrug

"Yeah but I don't know what to name him...hey, why don't you name him, your usually good at naming animals."

Kathleen shrugged and stared at Draco's owl, it was fluffed up and clicking and seemed to have a horrible attitude around people it wasn't used to. 'wonder where he get it from' she sighed inwardly looking at Draco. "How about Medivh, a Powerful mage who could open gate across time a space and summon creatures from beyond the portals, who even after his death still came back as an oracle to watch over man and his struggles." Draco liked the name it seemed to fit his owl even though the story with it didn't seem likely, his owl seemed to like it too for it calmed down and closed his beak.

"wow, seemed that worked better then I expected." Kathleen said with a smile. Then suddenly she frowned. "what do you mean usually good at naming animals?" She asked watching as Draco gave her a look that said 'seriously' all over it.

"Mittens?" was all he said before feeding Medivh a piece of bread and shooing the owl away, he would write to his father later.

Kathleen sat on her bed in the dungeon, she was supposed to be gathering her supplies for her next class but she just wanted to sit for a moment. Mittens sat on the end of the bed, though his head rested on Kathleen's lap while she petted his head. Howl had settled himself on top of the large cat, and even with the stereotype about cats and birds Mittens just didn't seem interested at all. People had thought it strange that way Howl followed her around, Jared had already flown off to the Owlry where he was supposed to be, but no matter how many times she sent Howl there, the owl would return.

She still had thirty minutes to spare before Transfiguration and in all honesty she needed a rest, her abdomen was sore and hurt every time she tired to sit down and stand up and honestly her head wasn't doing much better. Potions had been a pain in the ass, though she followed the instructions her sleeping potion had turned out wrong.

"I would advise you, Miss Grey, that you don't want to be slipping this down anyone throat, unless you want to be charged with murder." Snape had said in his usual low voice that sounded halfway between a whisper and a growl.

Though Care of Magical Creatures had been better it didn't help that Draco kept pissing off one of the Blast Ended Skrewts and nearly got her head blown off. She had stepped on his foot for that one and elbowed him in the ribs every time he insulted the Half Giant they had as a teacher, Hargid, she thought his name was, Harry had mentioned him before but she only really was able to talk to him during class, he seemed to try and avoid Slytherins, even her. Maybe she would visit him later and bring Mittens along, the Professor had not yet seen the Tiger and she really wanted to get to know him since Harry liked him so much.

And then there was Defense against the Dark Arts Moody had been as strange as always but at least the lessons didn't involve the unforgivable curses anymore and he left Kathleen alone most of the time now though he seemed to stick to Harry which made her suspicious Famous as he was, all the other Teachers treated Harry like any other student, no special treatment or anything like that, but Moody...he was strange and she didn't like it.

And now it was time for Transfiguration, she didn't mind to much actually, she liked Professor McGonagall, though she was strict she was also kind-hearted and looked out for all the students, even the ones that were not in her house, but Kathleen figured thats why she was Deputy Head Mistress. And her classes were always amusing, though Kathleen had to stay after class for remedial lessons with her the most, she really didn't mind because it usually ended up that she would have some tea and tarts with the Professor while she worked on catching up, she had actually grown quite close to her, it was as if her grandmother was right there with her.

Kathleen rose from her bed and gathered up her supplies and stuffed them in her bag before kissing Mittens on the top of the head and petting Howl's breast. "see you guys later." she said to both of them before leaving the room, half expecting howl to follow but when he didn't she let out a sigh of relief, Mittens would keep him busy she supposed. Though she felt a little sad, since Mittens didn't follow her around as much anymore she had started to feel a bit lonely without him always at her side, but she figured he was growing up fast and Tigers are more solitary creatures anyway.

**OMG I FINISHED ANOUTHER CHAPER sorry it took SOOOOOOOOOOOO long, busy months with all the holidays and stuff and I have been overdosing myself on World of Warcraft, but yeah I'm back for now and will try to pump these out faster, also for those of you reading my other stories I will finish them but for now I am going to focus on one story at a time so first thing is first I will finish this one and then move on to the next, or at least finish fourth year chapters then see how I feel about my other stories, I might just give up on blood red for now until I finish this completely and Spoiler Alert: I am creating an Inuyahsa Fan-Fiction, it is in construction, but I don't want to post it up yet because if I don't update soon enough people will try to kill me, my friends are already sad I don't update this enough, but just know that yes there is one and I'll post it up when I have enough chapters written down that people will be satisfied even if I don't post the next chapter for a while. Also I should have the next chapter to this one up really soon, I just needed to end this one and start the next, so as soon as this was posted up I began on the next, though I'm going to take a nap first.**

**SOOO ENJOY!**

**EDIT! : (had to edit her mothers name...i didn't like the original but I gave it more thought this time...)**


	7. The Yule Ball

**I Think I Kinda Like you **

**By Taki-Sama**

**Disclaimer: I Do not own the Characters or some recognizable bits of story line. J.K. Rowling does. **

**A/N: Okay so I decided that following the storyline (in a way) is getting kinda boring, I mean we all knows what happens in the Movies (Ew movie 4) and the book, and your looking for some spice so I decided that I will start changing a few things up because hey its a fan fiction people wont get pissed if it doesn't follow the book (like the movie -.-) so yeah lets stray from the cheesy and not as much action as I wanted and lets take a dive shall we =D. (and also lets add a little more Romantic confusion shall we?)**

**Read and Review Please!**

**Chapter 7: The Yule Ball. **

"Potter! Weasley! Will you kindly pay attention!" Professor McGonagall barked across the class room at Harry and Ron who were having a fake sword fight in the back of the class with a pair of Fred and Georges Fake wands.

Kathleen turned her head to look at the two boys and had to stifle a laugh as she looked at both of them. While she was still sour about Ron's little pity party earlier, he had apologized for acting like a git so their relationship was almost back to normal, though Kathleen still held a grudge against him for it, if he had been a true friend he would have never accused Harry of entering himself in, and even if Kathleen had been allowed to enter, she still didn't force the Goblet to choose her. She held a small inkling that Ron was only Harry friend for the fame, but she supposed if Harry liked him around that was fine, she wasn't going to say anything about it.

"Now that Potter and Weasley have decided to act their age, I would like to continue with what I was saying." The deputy Headmistress snapped turning her attention back to the rest of the class. "The yule Ball is fast approaching- it is a traditional dance accompanied with the Tournament and an opportunity to get to know our foreign guests. It will be open only to forth years and above, but they will be allowed to invite a younger guest."

Kathleen had to cover her ears as Lavender Brown squealed a few feet away from her. She rolled her eyes as the girl and her friend, Parvati Patil, turned to stare longingly at Harry. Professor McGonagall continued to give information about the ball and its formalities and added that even with this exciting event coming up she still expected to see her house and the other students working hard on their studies.

Soon the bell rang and Kathleen picked up her back and turned to leave when Professor McGonagall called her and Harry.

"A Word you two if you please?" she asked and Kathleen made her way to the Professor's desk and looked at Harry who came to stand beside her.

"Potter, Miss Grey, The Champions and their Partners-"

"What Partners?" Harry interrupted and Kathleen had to smack her forehead and sigh hopelessly. McGonagall did not look amused, possibly thinking Harry was trying to be funny and not being a genuine idiot.

"Your Partners for the ball Potter, Your _Dance_ Partners." She said slowly her eyes flicking to Kathleen hoping she wouldn't have to explain it to her too, thankfully the girl gave her a understanding look so she continued. "You and the others-"

"Oh...I Don't dance..." Harry interrupted again and Kathleen ended up picking up a book off of Mcgonagall's desk and smacked Harry in the head with it. She looked apologetic to the Professor and set the book back down.

"ow..." harry whispered rubbing the back of his head.

"Though I don't tolerate violence miss Grey I'll let it slide this time." McGonagall sighed and stared sternly at Harry. "May I continue or do I have to transfigure your mouth into something a little more silent?" she threatened and nodded when harry shook his head.

"You will dance, that is what I'm trying to say, as Champions it is your job to open the Dance, its traditional, so I suggest you find yourselves Dance partners before its to late." and with that McGonagall shooed them from the room.

Kathleen sighed as She, Harry, Ron and Hermione made their way to the Great Hall a Week later.

"Had I known this sooner I would have thought finding a Date to the Yule Ball would have been easier then fighting the Hortail...now it think I'll have another go at the Dragon..." Harry mumbled. "And do Girls always have to travel in packs? How are we supposed to get one alone to ask them?"

"We could use a lasso?" Ron suggested. "Any idea who your going to ask?"

Kathleen rolled her eyes and turned to Hermione, the Two of them we lagging back slightly while Harry and Ron talked.

"So going with anyone?" She asked Hermione who blushed and Nodded. Kathleen Grinned. "Oh, who is it?"

"Promise not to tell Ron...or Harry cause he'll tell Ron anyway."

"Sure okay."

"Victor Krum."

Kathleen had to stifle a gasp. "Wow he asked you?" she beamed when Hermione nodded. "Thats really great."

"Thanks, but I'm so nervous, I don't know what to wear...and I didn't even think about it logically before I said yes...later on Neville asked me if I wanted to go, and I felt so bad turning him down."

"I'm sure Neville will find someone else, besides if he goes to the dance you can ask him to dance with you later."

"Yeah I guess your right." Hermione smiled at Kathleen but that smile vanished as she Stopped and stared behind Kathleen a small blush on her face, Kathleen gave her a confused look until she heard her name and turned to Face Cedric Diggory.

Ron and Harry stopped to to stare suspiciously at him, and something clicked in the back of Harry head and his stare turned into a glare.

"Hey, I have been look everywhere for you." Cedric said as he caught up to the group. He stopped in front of Kathleen and gave her a small crooked smile a small tint of a blush on his face.

Kathleen's heart started to race at the older boys smile and all she could do was grin back, not noticing that Cedric's eyes shifted mischievously to Harry as if daring him to do something. "O-oh? And why were you looking for me?" She asked her cheeks felt hot and she knew she was blushing herself.

"I was just wondering, if you would like to come to the Dance with me."

Kathleen's brain seized and her heart stopped beating. Cedric Diggory, Hogwarts most handsome and charming student wanted to take her to the dance. She beamed happily and despite getting the feeling she was about to do something stupid she opened her mouth.

"I would love to Cedric."

The Hufflepuff champion grinned and winked at her. "Great, I'll see you then." and walked off.

Thats when Kathleen suddenly realized what she had done and covered her mouth looking shocked. She turned to Harry who was looking at her like she was Crazy and Hermione had her eyebrows raised, Ron just look impressed, he really didn't pay attention to anything.

"Oh shit, what did I just say?"

"I Believe it was somewhere along the lines of 'I would love to Cedric'." Harry said controlling the bitterness in his voice, it wasn't towards Kathleen, it was towards Cedric, he was getting up the courage to ask her himself, possibly in a few days, but that git had shown up first and he knew that Harry liked her.

"Oh dear, I am so dead. I can't believe I just said that, I wasn't thinking at all...it just came out."

"Whats the big deal?" Ron asked.

Kathleen shifted uncomfortably and looked at Hermione who already knew about Draco asking her several months back.

"Because I was supposed to go with...someone else." She didn't say anything else and the group sighed in unison.

"Your hopeless..." Hermione said shaking her head.

"Who were you supposed to go with?" Harry asked a little curious.

Kathleen looked at him guiltily and it took a few more seconds before he figured it out.

"Malfoy right?" he snapped and felt bad for the tone when Kathleen flinched.

"Well he did ask first...Besides at the time he just told me it was a simple Dance, not a large Formal Ball, I didn't know it was that important at the time!" Kathleen cried in her defense.

"Why would you go with the sniveling Ferret anyway?" Ron growled glaring at Kathleen.

"Because he's my friend even if you don't like him, and as I said He asked first."

"So if one of his goons asked first would you go?" Ron continued not knowing when to stop.

"No you jerk, Draco is my friend and just because you have a problem with him doesn't mean I do, besides at least he didn't bite my head off when my name was pulled from the Goblet, which make him a better friend then yourself!" she hissed and turned to stomp off leaving Ron looking shocked, his face turning red from anger and embarrassment.

**Harry **watched Kathleen stalk off, while he was upset about the whole situation, Ron had pushed her a little to much and she was still trying to forgive him for being a git during the first part to the tournament.

"Well good job you two, she was under enough stress already." Hermione snapped and turned and went after Kathleen leaving Harry and Ron alone in an uncomfortable silence.

"lets go..." Ron finally said. "I'm hungry.." and continued down the corridor to the Great hall, after a few more seconds Harry followed after him.

**- **_One Week Later _**-**

**Kathleen** and Hermione sat together in the Gryffindor common room, with the permission of McGonagall and Dumbledore, Kathleen was allowed to visit the tower during the Holidays despite being a Slytherin. Kathleen held a large package in her lap and a letter in her hands, it was addressed to her and Hermione from her Father.

_Dear Kathleen,_

_I got these for you and your friend after you told me about the ball and your small problem. I hope both of you like them, I had help from your grandmother since I have no idea what I was doing at the time. There is also a small package within the larger one that your Grandmother sent...she says if you lose them she'll kill you since she paid good money for them and had to order them from London so they would get there faster. I just hope everything is in order and that you have a great time. _

_P.S. Just tell this Draco boy the truth, I'm not saying he will be happy but at least he wont have to see you walk down with another boy while waiting for you. Hopefully this reached you before Christmas so if it did you have a few days to tell him...do it now._

_P.S.S. I love you and Bring your Friends for a visit sometime, they might be wizards but no one is a above a visit to the Big Apple. _

_Give 'em Hell - grandma_

_Love- Dad._

Kathleen beamed at the letter and gave it to Hermione to read as she unwrapped the box and gasped at the contents.

Hermione finished the letter and follow Kathleen's Gaze, she saw two different colored expensive looking fabrics and she knew they were ball gowns each on had a tag with their names on it.

As quick as both of them could they pulled out each dress and held them up to look at in the fire light.

"Oh My God, Grandma out did herself, I mean I know she had the money to...but damn..." Kathleen said holding up her gown. It was deep blood red silk with black lace over the breast area, though leaving the corset tight middle bare, and more wrapped loosely around the skirt. It had no sleeves and flowed all the way down to the floor. Embedded in the lace was small black gems that glittered even in the dim firelight, even the ones facing away from the fire glittered, and Kathleen knew it had to be magic there seemed to be more to her family then meets the eye. She turned the gown around and saw the back was a lace up meaning her back would be bare, only covered by the strings that held the top of the gown up.

"Oh Kathleen, this is beautiful." Hermione breathed looking at her own dress. Kathleen looked over at Hermione's and her eyes went wide, Hermione's dress was made of gold silk and like hers was sleeveless, but instead of the corset type top the dress was designed to cling to Hermione until it reached just below her hips in order to show off Hermione's curves a little more and make her bust look bigger. The skirt was flared to make movement easy and the silk was bundled in a way that it gave more volume to the skirt, but not making it look hideous like some dresses that attempted the style. Each fold was held up by a single diamond stud and the folds turned into ruffles in the back that flowed all he way do in the floor as did the rest of the skirt in smoother movements in the front, and just below the chest area where Hermione's breast would rest was a Diamond broach in the shape of a white rose in bloom. The back of it was also a lace up and that made Hermione blush a little but the girl was beaming happily.

And if that wasn't enough to overwhelm both the girls there was a smaller box inside the one the dress held and when they opened it tow sets of jewelry glared out at them again each piece had the girls names on them.

Kathleen had to give her grandmother credit, she knew how to spoil her. Her necklace was a chocker that was made black silk with more black lace that went over the strip of silk. Clinging to the middle of the fabric was a small cameo made of black stone with a white ivory carving of a serpent on it and was set in pure silver. Despite hating snakes, Kathleen knew that her Grandmother had done this on purpose because she knew about Draco and thought that she should show a little house pride. She didn't mind though, it was beautiful even the snake had its own beauty about it. There was also a pair of earrings that matched the necklace they were black Diamond studs with the same, but smaller, cameos hanging off them, and another pair of teardrop shaped black diamonds hung off the cameos themselves.

Hermione's Jewelry was the same, only instead of black the silk on her chocker was gold and the background of the cameo was blood red and the blooming rose in the center was gold, and was set in pure gold instead of silver. Her earring also matched Kathleen's as well, but again they were different colors instead of black diamond hers were made of rubies. Hermione looked as if she was about to cry.

"I have to get pictures of us in these so I can send them to my family back home, mom was so sad when she couldn't get me my dress, but I think she'll be happy to see this...your grandmother is very generous."

"Well, your like a sister to me, and my Grandmother always wanted another grandchild to spoil and when I wrote to her about you over the year she just had to go all out."

At this Hermione beamed even wider. "I think I'll take up your dads offer and visit sometime."

Kathleen nodded and rummaged through the rest of the larger box to make sure nothing was missed, she ended up pulling out two pairs of elegant silk gloves that were made to pull up to the elbow, one set was black and the other was gold. She held out the gold pair to Hermione and put hers with her dress.

"Now just to tell Draco about my mistake...hopefully he doesn't hate me."

"Good luck."

"Thanks for the support."

_-one day later-_

"You what?" **Draco** asked looking confused and hurt at the same time.

"I'm really, really, really sorry Draco! I never meant to say yes, but my brain shut down and I couldn't control what came out of my mouth! Please I know your probably mad at me, but know that I had every intention of going with you." Kathleen explained quickly before Draco could explode at her, she had caught him in the hallway on the way to charms and she had dragged him into an empty classroom and pulled out her wand casting a quick locking and silencing charm on the door before explaining everything to Draco.

Draco sighed and ran a hand through his hair pacing back and forth. He stopped when he saw Kathleen's face, she looked close to tears. So she really did mean what she said...at least she was honest. He took a deep breath and relaxed, he could always steal her away from Cedric at the dance.

"It's alright, I'm not mad, I would have been if you showed up at the dance with him...but thanks for telling me...i know that you have been under a lot of stress lately..." Draco said calmly and was pleased when Kathleen wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.

"Thank you so much Draco!"

Draco hugged her back just as tightly. "Can I ask a favor though?"

"Anything!"

"Come to Malfoy Manor with me for New Years, my Parents will be hosting their own ball, and my father has requested your presence after I wrote the letter to him about your mother, he seemed a little excited about it, though I could be mistaken, it is my father after all." Draco felt Kathleen pull away a little but her hands still rested in his and she seemed to be thinking. But after a minute she nodded.

"Alright, I guess I owe you that much and if your father requested it I can't refuse I suppose." Kathleen grinned at him and it made his heart flutter.

"Good, cause I was going to drag you there even if you said no."

"I see how it is."

"yep."

Both he and Kathleen fell into comfortable silence as they exited the room and made their way to Charms class just before the starting bell ran.

-_December 25th-_

_**Kathleen **sat in a field of lilies warming herself in the sun as butterflies flew around her. Mittens played a distance away trying to catch each butterfly as it flew past him. Suddenly their was a rustle in the bushes that was coming from the nearby forest. Kathleen stood and gasped as a Unicorn stepped out of the trees to graze on the grass surrounding the white flowers. Slowly Kathleen approached the beautiful creature and carefully lifted her right hand. The Unicorn watched Kathleen approach it and gently stretched its neck towards her until it's nose was in the palm of her hand. There was a sudden snapping noise to the left of them and the Unicorn backed up and bolted leaving Kathleen to just stare after It. Her mother used to love unicorns, she didn't know how she remembered that, but she did._

Kathleen's eyes fluttered open and a smile graced her face. She frowned when she felt a heavy weight on her feet and raised her head to see Mittens stretched out at the end of the bed, his front legs dangling off the edge and his back ones doing the same on the opposite end. She pouted, he had gotten so big, so fast...she would have to start investing in a new familiar for next year...possibly something smaller. And perched on top of Mittens was Howl who turned his head all the way around to stare at Kathleen with one eye open.

"good morning to you too." Kathleen said beaming. She then pulled her leg out from under her heavy Tiger and smile when he lifted his head and yawned his large pink tongue sticking out and showing off his new adult canines.

She placed her feet on the floor of the dorm and yawned only to snap her jaw shut as she remembered something and the sound of giggling and tearing wrappers met her ears. It was Christmas!

She sprang out of bed and beamed when she saw a large pile of gifts at the base of her bed, a lot of it was from her father and Grandmother, it seemed that Dumbledore held on to the gifts till Christmas as a surprise to the students.

She tore through her gifts one by one, by the end she had two knitted turtle neck new sweaters, one green the other White, both designed to cling to her figure. She also received a new set of book on Magic, from basic to advanced. There were also a few fun stuff here and there like some new simple jewel studs for her ears all of various colors, and some new reading material that was academic like the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien, since she couldn't watch the movies here her father sent her the books instead, though she didn't mind she had been wanting to read them knowing the movies had left things out. She also got a Journal from her father that Looked like the Journal River Song had in Doctor Who, she grinned as it came with a flowing ink pen that looked like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver when she opened the book it was obviously blank but the pages where a tan color to signify old age. She missed the muggle world sometimes. She shrugged, she would have to catch up during the summer.

She looked at the clock, it was seven thirty, another hour till breakfast, hopefully Draco was out in the Common room by now. After casting a quick cleaning charm to get rid of the excess paper she reached into the chest at the end of the bed and pulled out a small package that had Draco's name on it. Last time she went to Hogsmead she had picked it up for him, it was just to perfect not to get for him. She stood to leave when her foot bumped against something. She looked down to see one more gift that she had missed. She reached down and picked it up shrugging, she would open it in the common room.

"Come on you lazy house cat, let go find Draco."

Mittens yawned and stretched again shacking Howl off him, much to the owls displeasure, and slid off the bed following Kathleen out of the dorm.

As expected Draco was spread out on the couch in front of the fire, taking up the entire thing so no one else could sit there. Kathleen rolled her eyes, she was right to think of him as the snake prince when she first met him, he sure acted like one, spoiled, arrogant, full of himself...should she go on?

When she stepped into his view he grinned at her but didn't move. "Hey, was wondering when you would wake up."

"I was busy enjoying my gifts." She said and tried to push his legs off the couch with no anvil. "You want to move?"

He looked like he was thinking before shaking his head. "No to tired, you'll just have to sit on the floor."

Kathleen glared at him and then turned around and plopped down into his lap. There were a few gasps around the room and quiet whispered but Kathleen ignored them.

"No thanks I'll just sit here." She grinned as he struggled for words and a blush crept up onto his face but he was cut off from saying anything when she held out one of the gifts she had been carrying under his nose. "Merry Christmas." She said softly.

**Draco** had not been expecting Kathleen to sit in his lap when he refused to move, but he had to say is was a pleasant surprise. He was going to speak when she held out the present. Her took it from her hands and quickly opened it, there was a black velvet box under the wrapping and when he opened it his jaw nearly fell off. Inside was a beautiful and expensive amulet made of a polished Emerald in an oval shape and was the size of a snitch. The Emerald had a simpled silver cast around it to hold it to the silver chain but when he looked closer he saw small runes around it and inside the Emerald itself was a silver dragon head that was turned to the side,with red rubies for eyes.

"where did you get this?" He asked simply astonished.

"I went into the nearby jewelry shop in Hogsmead and had it custom made for you, I thought a snake would be to obvious and impersonal so I decided to get this made."

"It must have cost a fortune."

"Well, it turns out that my Ancestor had left his decedents with a lot of money, I found out about it when I asked Dumbledore how I could transfer Muggle money into a few galleons for Christmas and he did a little digging for me. I still wonder what happened apparently the vault hadn't been touched for about a hundred years...hopefully your dad has something about my Fathers family too..."

"Maybe, he has a lot of information on a lot of wizard families." Draco answered still staring at the amulet. "This is great, Thank you, I also have something for you, let me go get it." He gently pushed Kathleen off and hurried into the boys dorms.

He rummaged around his stuff in his chest. _'where did I put that damned thing..' _he mentally mumbled and finally pulled out a silver and gold ornate jewelry box that had green and red gems on the top. He returned a few minutes later to see Kathleen fiddling with another present in her hands just about to tear open the wrapping when Draco cleared his throat.

**Kathleen **looked up before she could open the last gift when Draco returned, he held out the most beautiful Jewelry box she had ever seen and she set the other gift aside to take it into her hands and carefully opened it up to reveal an antique Hair piece that looked like a comb, it was supposed to go into your hair once it was done up. Like most of the Jewelry that had been passed back and forth it was silver with white diamonds wrapping around the ornate design making look almost like a small crown, and in the center of it was an emerald just a little bigger then the Diamond surrounding it.

If Draco thought her gift was expensive, this one was_ priceless._

"I was going to give it to you during the dance...but since your going with Diggory I thought now would be better so you could wear it with your gown or something." Draco mumbled with a small blush.

"Thank you so much Draco..it's beautiful."

-**3**-

**Kathleen **ate her breakfast happily, she was able to sit with the Gryffindors so she could give her other presents to everyone, they were nothing like what she gave to Draco, For Harry she gave him a scarf with a pattern of snitches on it and a box of chocolate frogs so harry could enjoy them for once without Ron getting to them first. To Ron, even if he had been a jerk, she gave him a bundle of Cd's by Muggle bands and a Cd player (he father sent it from New York on her request.) . It was outdated but she figured he would get even more confused with an I pod and anything high-tech would possibly glitch in Hogwarts. To say he was excited was an understatement.

"just don't let your dad get a hold of that." she heard Harry say to him, he had told her of Mr. Weasley's fascination with Muggle 'Artifacts'.

For Hermione (though she swore she didn't need anything after the gown), Kathleen got her a trilogy of books she had enjoyed and decided Hermione might like to dive out of real life once and while. It was called the Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Malory. It was about magic as usual but it still was a good read and was still a fantasy even to witches and wizards. Hermione leaned over to beam at Kathleen and mouthed a thank you before opening up the first book to start reading since Harry was busy explaining to Ron about some of the Muggle bands, well the ones he knew.

**-3-**

**Kathleen **and Hermione, and a few other girls were locked away in the Girls bathroom, it was Six Forty-five in the evening just two hours before the ball started. Kathleen was busy helping Hermione in to her dress, making sure she didn't tie the laces to tight to crush her. The other girls in the bathroom would stop to stare at everyone else's dresses and throw compliments around or help pick up things another girl dropped.

Ginny Weasley, Ron's sister, was helping Kathleen lace up her dress while she helped Hermione. They had meet a while ago and Kathleen could tell that Ginny liked Harry and shook her head whenever Harry failed to notice it.

"Thanks so much Ginny, I needed an extra pair of hands." Kathleen thanked her as she tied off the laces to Hermione's dress.

"Anytime, I'll see you two at the dance, I have to go do something before I get ready." Ginny grinned at both of them before stepping out of the bathroom.

"Now we just have to do something with our hair." Kathleen stated looking at her mess of red, for some reason today had to be one of those bad hair days, she had nearly broke her brush trying to get her tangles out.

"At least yours isn't as bushy as mine...I mean look at this mop, I'm going to have to use a ton of magic to tame it." Hermione stared at herself in the mirror for a moment and sighed shaking her head.

Kathleen laughed and stood behind Hermione again pulling her wand out from between her breasts and summoning a chair for her to sit on. "Here, I'll help."

It took at least an hour to work on Hermione's hair, Surprisingly the locks felt soft and silky, but that was the problem, it was hard to deal with when it was this soft, even Kathleen's hair was a little rougher making it easier to deal with. But a ton of hair spells and some pretty hair accessories later (borrowed from some of the other girls who didn't need them) Kathleen had put Hermione's hair up into a elegant bun that gave of a soft chocolate and gold shine with a few colorful Gem hairpins here and there that added to the effect. Kathleen stared at it for a moment before pulling her want back out and casting a quick spell that would release some of Hermione's hair and let it dangle down in elegant vines here and there.

Hermione looked pleased with the result and some of the girls in the room commented on how jealous they were of her. First she was dancing with Victor Krum and now she would have the most beautiful hair at the dance.

"You really didn't need to do so much, I took up the time you could have used on your hair..."

"Thats alright Hermione mine might look hard to manage because of its thickness and length but it shouldn't take to long. You get started on your accessory and I'll get to work on my own don't worry." Hermione nodded and was done within ten minutes and left Kathleen alone in the bathroom as she and the other girls left to wait in the common room before they went to meet their dates.

Kathleen turned her head form side to side while looking in the mirror trying to figure out what to do with her mess. Her eyes fell the the Jeweled box Draco had given her and she smiled gently. As fast as she could without messing up Kathleen used magic to pull her hair up in a bun much like Hermione's, as she worked her eyes kept flicking to the clock she had half and hour to finish and make her way towards the Great Hall. When she got all her hair up she flicked her wand and muttered a spell that released some of the hair and it began to magically braid itself before wrapping around the bun before 'gluing' itself into place. She then enchanted her hair so when the light hit in in certain areas it would look as if her hair glittered like tiny stars. After getting her hair done she noticed she had only ten minutes left and began to put on the jewelry her Grandmother sent and then magically applied her make up, she didn't need much just some mascara and a little lip gloss, her cheeks were already 'blushed' naturally so she didn't need to do anything more. Last she carefully opened the box and pulled out the comb staring at it as it glittered in the dim light, even though she was wearing red, the piece wouldn't clash with it. Carefully she slipped the comb into the front of the bun where it started at the scalp and turned her head left and right making sure it was center. It looked like a tiara in a way. Something told her if her mother could see her now, she would be proud of her.

Kathleen backed up and stared in the mirror before conjuring a pair of black elegant high heels and slipping them on before making her way out of the bathroom. It was Eight Fifteen now.

**-3-**

**Draco** stood at the top of the Stairs leading down to the Great Hall and yawned as he waited for his date, since he couldn't walk in with Kathleen on his arm, he had asked Pansy Parkinson if she would like to attend with him, she was more then happy to and nearly squealed his ear off before dashing off to tell her friends. He was only going with her because he had to show up with someone, it would damage his reputation if he walked in alone. He was dressed in the finest black dress robes and his hair was slicked back like it had been in his first year. He hadn't wanted to have his clothing stand out for him thinking he could do that on his own, but one thing on him did stand out, the Amulet Kathleen had given him stood out proudly on his chest adding to his regal air.

He glanced over at Cedric Diggory who was leaned against the railing and just like himself he yawned, though not from being bored, he really looked tired. Draco didn't feel much resentment towards the older boy, Kathleen had said yes as a mistake, she didn't like him in a serious way and Draco had to admit the guy was charming and handsome and didn't have his own arrogance so It was hard to refuse him Draco supposed. _'though...now that I think about it...who the hell does this guy think he is...damn hufflepuff. Shes mine.'_ He thought to himself crossing his arms angrily. He heard the rustle of a dress behind him and expected to see Pansy as he turned around making his face emotionless, but instead his eyes became wide and his heart stopped beating.

There she was, his beautiful Kathleen, she glided her way down the stairs the silk of her dress making hardly any sound as she moved, he couldn't help but smile as his eye trailed up to her neck where the cameo was placed, it had the Slytherin symbol on it as did her earrings. His pride only swelled when his eyes locked on the comb she had fixed in her hair. It was the one he gave her and even if it wasn't supposed to match her attire, it seemed to add to it very well. She smiled softly at him before turning her attention to Diggory and letting the older boy wrap his arm around hers before leading her to the Hall. It was only then that Draco's body functions started to return to normal. He was about to follow her inside when a screech of something like a banshee sounded behind him. He closed his eyes and sighed. Right...Pansy..

"Drakey poo! I'm ready!" the pug faced Slytherin made her way quickly down the steps and latched on to his arm. His face went blank and emotionless and he simply nodded leading her down the stairs, God was she ugly and the hot pink cocktail dress she was wearing didn't help her plain features one bit. "Oh Drakey, where did you get that, its so pretty." She exclaimed reaching for the Amulet only to pout when Draco leaned just slightly so it was out of he reach.

"It was a gift." was all he said to her but she just nodded and grinned up at him giggling.

This was going to be a long night.

**-3-**

**Kathleen's **heart was pounding as Cedric led her out to the dance floor for the opening dance, she was used to performing in front of a large amount of people so it wasn't the fact she would be watched, no, it was because of Cedric, he made her nervous, she wasn't romantically interested in him, in fact she was still at the stage of confusion between Draco and Harry, she knew they liked her thanks to Hermione's information and sharp eye, but she wasn't sure if she liked them in that way yet so she defiantly didn't like Cedric in that way, it was just the fact he was handsome and very charming that she acted the way she did, she didn't want to feel like a wilted flower next to a strong tree. At that moment something clicked in Kathleen's mind, she had never really thought of the Tournament as a competition, she had been thinking of it as a test of her skill and while it was she had never been all for winning. She had so much fire in the beginning of the year but after the Goblet called her name she was under so much stress that she started to sink into herself and occasionally pick a fight with her friends, well Hermione was the only on she didn't snap at.

Once all champions and their partners were on the floor and music started and Cedric began to lead her around the dance floor, the music was a upbeat waltz, she was so glad her father had taken her dancing a lot when she was younger otherwise she would be a loss. But she kept up with Cedric and soon she saw the other students grabbing their partners and started to dance with the champions. After a few minutes the music changed to something even faster and almost in a form of a tango. During this part of the dance she could tell Cedric was holding back, thinking that she wouldn't be able to keep up but she just grinned up at him and then using her body she urged him to go faster and soon they were going the speed the dance was intended for, in fact it seemed now Cedric was having trouble keeping up.

"I didn't know you could dance so well." He said a little shock on his face.

"Please, I'm a performer, I have to know a lot up on stage back home." Kathleen replied and smiled when Cedric chuckled.

Soon after that section of music ended Cedric seemed to be thinking of asking her for another dance when Draco approached them and tapped Cedric on the shoulder signing that he wanted a turn with her. Cedric frowned at first but then bowed and let Draco take over.

She had seen Draco standing a ways away with some girl earlier, Pansy, she thought her name was, a nasty Slytherin girl that took to glaring at Kathleen all year.

She smiled as Draco took her hand and began to lead her around the dance floor, he seemed a little more skilled then Diggory which was probably expected since he was upper class.

"How are you enjoying the dance?" Draco asked her spinning her quickly and pulling her back towards him.

"I love it, just what I needed to shake the stress away." Kathleen replied trying to hold back a giggle as Draco dipped her and pulled her back up. "your very good at this."

"So are you."

They fell into a comfortable silence as they dance, Kathleen giggling once and a while and Draco letting out a light laugh as they danced around the room, though after a while Kathleen started to feel dizzy when they hit a song that required a lot of spins. They both stopped for a fraction of a second when they heard a small squeak of shock and turned to see Krum helping Hermione up, she had a bright red blush on her face and Krum looked shameful like he had caused her to fall. After Kathleen knew that her friend was okay Draco continued to lead her around the dance floor.

"I have to admit, Granger looks strangely pretty tonight. I wonder how she was able to get that mess of hers tamed" Draco commented, and it didn't even sound as harsh has he might have intended it to.

"Actually I tamed that so called mess...and God was it annoying." Kathleen whined but grinned when Draco spun her again. "though my own hair was a challenge...i have to much of it, I should cut it sometime."

"I would rather you not, I like your long hair."

Kathleen nodded and blinked as she began to see the room spin once more.

"You think we could take a break...the whole room wont stop spinning." Kathleen asked feeling light headed.

"Oh, alright, should have told me earlier." Draco lead her off the dance floor and to the back wall where the punch and snacks were located.

Kathleen beamed at him, he knew he to well, and after the room settled down she grabbed a place and started to grab some snacks to munch on.

**Harry **had been watching Kathleen almost the entire time she had been dancing with Cedric, he had opened the dance with Parvati Patil, a girl he had asked last second because he ran out of time, but after the first dance was over he lead the girl away from the dance floor and she left him with Ron who was glaring at Krum as he danced with Hermione.

"this sucks..." Ron mumbled.

"yeah really..." Harry agreed.

Both friends sat in silence until Harry let out a small growl of annoyance, He watched as Malfoy took Cedric's place in Kathleen's arms, but instead of going over there himself he followed Cedric and once he was standing near on of the food table he stalked up to the Hufflepuff.

"What is your problem." Harry growled at him.

"What?" Cedric asked as he grabbed a thin piece of meat off the table and popped it into his mouth.

"You know I like Kathleen and you asked her to the Dance right in front of me! I was about to ask her myself!" He exclaimed thought tried to keep his voice down so they didn't attract attention.

"I did that on purpose you Nimrod, I was hoping if I asked her to the dance you would get mad and make your move, you know steal her away from me during the dance or something like that, I must read to many books to think that would have happened." Cedric explained with a frown. "But now your letting Malfoy sweep her across the room, and from the look on her face shes enjoying it...you better step up your game kid or by the time your in seventh year you'll be watch those two from a distance just like now." with that Cedric wandered off to find another girl to dance with.

Harry stood there with a small blush on his face looking sheepish. Make his move right, he was only fourteen. He had time. It wasn't like Voldemort was just going to pop up right now and kill him. He turned his attention back to Kathleen and Malfoy and sighed. Then it clicked, if he won the tournament he could prove to her what a great wizard he was and she would hopefully see how much better he was then that sniveling ferret Malfoy.

He smiled to himself at the thought and decided that he was going to go steal her from said ferret right now, only one problem, when he actually took a moment to pay attention, he noticed Kathleen had vanished off the dance floor. He kicked himself mentally and went back to join Ron in his little pity party again.

**Kathleen **was happily munching on some chocolate covered strawberries when she noticed a girl talking to Draco. It was Pansy the girl she had seen with Draco with earlier but he didn't look to happy. She decided to find out what was going on, Draco was her date now after all since Cedric had vanished.

"Hey whats up?" Kathleen asked still holding the plate of strawberries.

"Oh...it's you the Grey girl. I was just talking to Drakey, he won't dance with me." She said in an annoyingly high voice and turned her head to pout at Draco.

"Maybe he doesn't want to." Kathleen suggested taking a casual bite off one of the strawberries. She offered one to Draco who took it gratefully and inched towards her trying to escape Pansy.

Pansy seemed to noticed because her face became even uglier.

"He's supposed to dance with me I'm his date! You stole him away after Dancing with Cedric!" she shrieked at became even more annoyed when Kathleen raised a finger to her ear as if to block out some hurtful noise.

"Jeez if your voice gets any higher I think my eardrum is going to rupture." Kathleen whined. "And I didn't steal him away he wanted to dance with me through his own free will not my constant bitching." she added.

"Just drop it Pansy, I only brought you because I needed someone to go with and you wouldn't leave me alone ever since it was announced there was going to be a ball." Draco said looking a little pissed off the with girl.

Hurt flashed across Pansy's face before she turned around and stomped off.

"Sorry you had to see that, she is often like that I'm surprised you two didn't clash before, she think that we are supposed to be a couple since our families are supposed to be 'friendly' with each other." Draco apologized but Kathleen just shook her head and smiled at him to show he didn't need to explain. "So, ready for another dance or two?"

Kathleen grinned and took Draco's arm as he lead her back to the Dance floor and began to spin her around the room again.

The song that played was familiar, she knew it was Celtic but she couldn't place it until it started to pick up pace and she concentrated on the lyrics.

Draco smiled as he saw Kathleen's face as she listened to the music, he face brightened up as she recognized it.

"Oh, Marie's Wedding, My Mother and Father danced to this at their wedding." Kathleen exclaimed as they danced together, this time she didn't mind being spun around quickly and swept around the dance floor, the more upbeat and less dragging Celtic music brightened her mood and gave her more energy, when the song ended it flowed strait into 'Little Beggerman' and at some point Draco slipped away from her as she began to dance her wild dance as she had done in the rain a few months back.

People around her stopped dancing to watch the wild girl, including the teacher, instead they decided to clap along with the song as she twirled. A few other students from Hogwarts joined her in the circle to her glee and did their own jigs together as the song played. Kathleen laughed enjoying herself and sang with the song dancing around the circle with her fellow students. She recognized Seamus Finnegan from Gryffindor as he grinned at her while showing off his skill in river dance and she kicked off her shoes and lifted her skirt just slightly and joined him in the jig keeping time with him perfectly. When the song ended the room sounded with applause for the students who gave their all in the wild show of dance.

Kathleen's chest rose and fell as she grinned around the room her eyes locking with Draco as he grabbed her hand again beaming at her.

"You were great. And not even one hair out of place."

"Yeah well thats because of a ton of magic and skill." she replied taking a deep breath in to calm down her wild heart.

**Draco **couldn't believe his eyes as he watched Kathleen dance around the room, he felt a little jealous when she danced with Finnegan, if he could he would have danced with her, but his family was so formal that he wasn't used to the wilder form of dancing.

He sighed inwardly at least he got her to bring out her wilder side again, she had seemed uptight and stressed lately with the Tournament and class work on top of it, and she still hadn't figured out how to open the golden egg without it screaming in her ear.

He hope she would figure it out soon time was ticking.

**OMG CHAPTER SEVEN! (Insert spazz face here) I finished it finally, so sorry for the long wait, I was having trouble trying to figure out a lot of crap for the future chapters and stories. I was also working on my Inuyahsa Fan fiction that I will only post up once I'm finished with it. Don't worry I should have the next chapter up soon...maybe...if I don't get distracted again...^-^" anyway Enjoy. I might only make a few more chapters to this story so I can get started on fifth year (the one I wanted to start one until I wanted to do this stupid scene but oh well) but I promise the next story should be more exciting since the Forth book was when things finally started to pick up pace and become a little 'darker' and more intense. And I'll name it something better..."I Think I Kinda Like You" was meant for a cuter story but it started to evolve...ANYWAY R&R!**


	8. New Years Revelations

**Kathleen Grey and the Goblet of Fire**

**By Taki-Sama**

**Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and all of its characters except the ones I add in.**

**A/N: Okay here we go hopefully I can make this chapter enjoyable and less drabble then the last ones...possibly =/ well if you like the last ones I guess I'm just not satisfied with my own stuff.**

_**Chapter 8: New Years Revelations. **_

Kathleen sat on the floor in front of the fire as she stared at the golden egg in front of her, the fires light bouncing off the egg and reflecting off the walls. She sighed and pushed the egg over onto its side and laid down beside it as if staring at it from a different angle would help.

"You ready to go?" A Voice called from behind her making her roll over onto her back and letting her head fall to the side to stare at the newcomer.

"What am I going to do...every time I open this stupid thing it just screams at me as if I'm killing it." Kathleen whined rolling back over to poke at it again.

"You could try taking a bath with it."

Kathleen sat up and looked at Draco as if he turned purple. "And how is that supposed to help?" she asked crossing her arms.

"Dunno, I just over heard Krum talking to one of his school mates about it, said he figured it out while he was taking a bath." Draco crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

Kathleen blinked and turned her head back towards the egg. "I suppose it couldn't hurt."

"Good, now hurry up and stuff that thing in a bag, Father will be here any minute to grab us for new years." Draco said pushing off the wall and headed back to the Boys dorms to get ready for his fathers arrival.

Kathleen groaned, apparently when she agreed to go with Draco, that also meant that his father would be picking them up a few days early, Not that she didn't mind getting out of Hogwarts for a few days, it was just the fact that when she told Harry and the others, they started telling her all about the Malfoy family. Apparently they were all about grace and poise and were one of the richest families in the wizarding world. She had money, so she wasn't worried about her financial status being looked down upon, it was the other two things she didn't have on a daily basis, grace and poise. Also from what she heard from Ron and Ginny the Malfoy's had a bad habit of looking down on people from muggle backgrounds, from her perspective, she was going to have a very interesting couple of days, and she hoped they wouldn't be all bad.

**-_Day One at Malfoy Manner_-**

"So Draco,this is the girl you were telling me about." Mr. Malfoy said as he circled Kathleen once looking her over with calculating eyes.

Kathleen tried to keep a polite smile on her face as Draco's father looked her over as if she were a prize turkey. She gave Draco a quick glance before her eyes locked with Mr. Malfoy's again. The man had arrived three hours after Kathleen finished packing, she and Draco had been sitting on the couch when the fire turned green and produced a very cold looking man.

"Yes Father, this is Kathleen." Draco said, he looked a little nervous and didn't bring his eyes off the ground except to give quick glances to Kathleen.

Kathleen took in a deep breath and decided to speak for the first time since Draco's father had arrived. "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Malfoy, I have heard great things about you." which wasn't a total lie, the Slytherins spoke highly of him, it was everyone else who brought him around as the bad guy but she wouldn't tell him that. To add to the effect she gave a little bow of her head in respect for her elder.

This seemed to please Malfoy senior because he gave her a small, almost invisible, smile and gave her a small bow back. "The pleasure is all mine." was all he said before turning back to Draco. "It's time we left, the house elves will be behind us with your things, and I have an important meeting to attend."

It was then he glance down at Mittens who was laying at Kathleen's feet. Mr. Malfoy hadn't objected to him coming in fact he was pleased to see the tiger, apparently the Malfoys had a fascination with all things exotic.

"Will he be alright traveling by way of Flu?" He asked making Kathleen raise her eyebrows just a little, was he concerned for Mittens?

"He should be fine sir, He has done this once before as a small cub." Kathleen answered looking down at Mittens who gave her the lazy cat look in return.

"Very well." Without another word he turned back to the fire place and threw a small amount of powder into it stepping in to the green flame. "Malfoy Manor." he said in clear voice and with a whoosh he vanished.

Kathleen looked at Draco and looked down at his hands as he held out the same powder. She took it and looked back up to see he was smiling. She grinned back and stepped behind him pushing him towards the fire.

"Ladies first." She said and Draco glared at her over his shoulder.

"I'll get you for that one." he said and stepped into the fireplace. "Malfoy Manor" and like his father he vanished leaving Kathleen alone.

"Come Mittens." She said nudging her tiger towards the fire place, once he climbed inside she followed and took a small pinch of the powder out of the sack and took in a deep breath and shut her eyes.

"Malfoy Manor."

It all happened so fast, she was pulled this way and that and on top of it all the world was spinning around and when she dared open her eyes all she saw was a blur of fireplace after fireplace until all at once it stopped and she and Mittens came tumbling out of the fireplace and slammed into something soft and hard at the same time.

Kathleen sat there dazed for a moment when she heard a groan and something shift under her, she blinked and sat up only to see that she was straddling a very dazed Draco, But just like her he snapped out of it quickly and both teens blushing, untangled themselves from each other before things became even more awkward.

"Sorry." she mumbled and stood up brushing the soot from her robes and went over to pat Mittens down, unlike her he seemed unaffected by the means of travel. He let out a very loud purr as she removed the soot from his fur and scratched him affectionately at the same time.

"It's alright, I was the idiot for standing right in front of the fireplace, bad habit I guess since I don't normally bring people home with me." Draco replied looking himself over to make sure he wasn't going to track to much soot through the house. He didn't know how his father managed to keep himself clean after a trip like that.

While the two of them dusted themselves off, Mr. Malfoy strode back into the room.

"Draco, go upstairs and help your mother with the last minute party arrangements." He commanded staring at his son pointedly.

Without question, Draco nodded to his father and made his way to the door and opened it, only stopping to turn and stare at Kathleen for a moment before leaving the room.

Once Draco had left Lucius turned back to Kathleen.

"If you wouldn't mind joining me in my privet study, I would like to talk to you about a few things." Without waiting for her answer Lucius strode back to the door and opened it, waving his hand in a small motion that suggested he wanted her to go through first.

Kathleen looked down at Mittens and the Tiger looked back up at her and licked his jaws and yawned laying down next to the fireplace, first Draco had left her alone with Malfoy senior and now her own familiar was ditching her. She sighed nodding, and feeling slightly abandoned.

"Alright." she said trying to keep her voice from sounding nervous before she walked out of the room, licking her now dry lips as she heard the door shut behind her and the presence of Lucius Malfoy began to overwhelm her senses.

Kathleen slowed down to allow him to pass her and followed him through the hallways of the large manor staring at her feet as they fell softly onto the soft rugs that lined the hallways. Once and a while Kathleen would look up and turned her head to stare at a painting as they past, usually they were of past generations of Malfoys. After a few more minutes of walking Lucius stopped and Kathleen leaned to her right a little to see they were standing in front of a door at the end of one of the hallways. Once again he opened the door and gestured Kathleen in first.

"Excuse me sir, but I thought you had a meeting to attend." She inquired politely as she entered the small room. The far wall was lined with dark leather bound tomes that had a foreboding feel about them, a desk laid in front of the bookcase and off to her right was a fireplace that held a large fire, crackling away providing the only light in the room, two armchairs perched in front of it. She narrowed her eyes at the sight, this room felt private and a bit uncomfortable, so she expected the chairs were only there for her visit.

"I took care of that, they will not miss me...and I expect you would like to know of your family history more then anything else." The older Malfoy said leading her to one of the chairs and sitting her down in one of them before taking a seat in the other.

At this, Kathleen forgot about her discomfot and sat up a little straighter. "Yes I would...sir." she added the honorific quickly, hoping he wouldn't see her as rude, but when she studied his face, he wasn't upset in the lest. From what she heard of the man before her, that was unusual. Something was up.

"Let me begin with your Fathers side first of all, Draco didn't give me much detail about him, and though some more information would be useful, I don't really need it, judging by your accent I can assume you grew up in the Americas, but the underlaying accent suggests you were not born there and your Father comes from Ireland...correct?"

Kathleen nodded warily and waited for him to continue.

"Unfortunately, I do not recall the name of 'Grey' anywhere in the _older_ records, but judging from what Draco had told me through his letters your story matches up with some records floating around the Ministry." Lucius Malfoy shifted a little in his seat, he seemed restless for one meant to be extremely straight-backed and formal. She could practically see the excitement waving off of him. "There was a pureblood family not to long ago, that suddenly dropped off the map when He-who-must-not-be-named came into power." his lips pursed together as he saw Kathleen's face darken at the suggestion of the Dark Lord, he cleared his throat and continued. "The name of the Family was Grendel-"

"Grendel? Like the poem of Beowulf?" Kathleen asked suddenly and then blushed and dropped her gaze shamefully. "Excuse my outburst sir..." she mumbled sheepishly wringing her hand together.

"As I am well aware of the muggle poem, no, while the name is similar it is not related." He stated simply before moving on. "From what I could gather one of the descendants, possibly one of your great-grandfathers, had attended Hogwarts with Dumbledore and was great friends with him for a time. But something got in between their friendship later on, I am not sure of his name...the records are old and what stories I could gather were from some older wizards who couldn't recall the name either all they knew was he was a Gryffindor." Lucius Malfoy seemed frustrated, but managed to move through the story. "More recent documents showed he had a son, Aiden Grendel, who also attended Hogwarts as a Gryffindor, but made unlikely friends with a Slythrin...Tell me Kathleen, you have heard of Tom Riddle correct?"

Kathleen gasped her eyes becoming wide. "Dumbledore told me about him...among other things..." She said trying to stay calm, her heart racing in her chest. She saw the older Malfoy's eyes flash curiously.

"Then you know how unusual of a friendship this was. It might have been because the Grendel family was a very powerful bloodline, a good ally to have later on when he started to set his plan in motion."

Kathleen could hear the undertones in Lucius voice, as if he was agreeing with the plan. She had a feeling he was getting his information from more then just 'old wizards' and she had politely forgot to mention that Dumbledore had informed her of Lucius' path as a Death Eater and quite possibly still an active one.

"But it seems the Grendel Family, had a hard time trusting in their friendships, because out of nowhere Aiden cut ties with the Dark Lord, still Tom Riddle then, right after they graduated from Hogwarts and then suddenly...Aiden disappeared. People thought the Dark Lord killed him, but with no body to be found or any indication Riddle knew where he had gone to, he seemed to have just fled. Now I said the Grey name couldn't be found in the older documents...but out of nowhere in Ireland a new name appeared, seemingly out of thin air. Your families name. From there the records were easy to find...your Grandfathers name would be Patrick Grey who married a witch from a lesser branch of the Weaslys...i am sure you know well enough about them...Her name being Elanor, your Grandmother. It seems he met her After Hogwarts though, as he was home schooled" He sounded confident this time, like he knew that she was definitely related to them. "They had a son named Jack, and then vanished, I assume now to America when the war started to rage. But a marriage license shows that Jack returned to Ireland and met Jasmine Negrand and there I found your birth certificate...unfortunately your Father's side of the family tend to like to disappear and I couldn't find anything more after that, Until Hogwarts finally managed to find you." He seemed a bit to excited to register that he was supposed to sneer at the fact that Kathleen was tainted by the family of blood traitors.

Kathleen just nodded slowly still dumbfounded. Her Grandparents had known all along about their magical abilities...her Grandmother went to Hogwarts, but they seemed to keep it a secret, she pieced together that this had something to do with Voldemort. And shockingly she found out she was related to Ron in some strange way, she already knew his family was quite large. Her grandfather, rest his soul, had never mentioned anything to her once when he was alive and her Father didn't seem to know a thing about his true heritage. She would have to write a very long letter home. Well at least now she knew why her hair was so red, even if it was a shade darker and more towards the color of blood instead of an orange, she suspected that was from the mixed blood of her Grandfathers side, even to the day he died, his hair had never gone completely white, still hinting towards the black it had once been.

Even as she still processed the information, she couldn't keep herself from asking. "And what about my mother?" her voice was barely a whisper. She looked up to lock eyes with Lucius and was shocked to see, if only for a fraction of a second, that his face became sorrowful before switching back to the cold man she had seen standing in front of her for the first time.

"That half of your heritage was easier to obtain information on then the Grendels. The House of Negrand was once an ally to The Malfoys but unfortunately they were a very old and dwindling family. After your mother ran away, for reasons unknown, your grandparents on her side died. They had no other children leaving the entire Negrand fortune to Jasmine since she was the only heir, but since she never returned, the wizarding world suspected she had died as well and locked up their family mansion, but the Goblins at Gringotts refused to release the money to the Ministry, apparently they knew of another heir but would not reveal who it was." Lucius stared at Kathleen, Pausing in his tale so she could process everything.

"What happened to the rest of the Negrand family? Surly they would have found heirs in the family tree, my mother couldn't have been the last of the bloodline." Kathleen was confused, if her Mothers family had been one of the great wizarding families they shouldn't have just died off like that.

"While they had once been a large family, They had a habit for tampering with dark magic, most important families do, but they did not keep it hidden and most of then were hunted down by the Ministry and thrown into Azkaban but that didn't keep them from continuing down the dark path and soon the bloodline was dwindled down until only your mother and her parents were the last ones left that we knew of."

Kathleen sat there in shock, her hands forming into tight fists and her eyesight dropped the to floor as she processed the information. Her mind then slipped into a different form of thought, she was thinking of her own personality, her Father seemed to be a calm person, when her mother had been killed, her grieved but didn't seem to want to avenge her death. When Kathleen became older and understood more of what happened, she was quick to swear vengeance in the most brutal way possible, but at the same time she was just as calm as her Father but was known to explode without warning, her friends often reminded of of that. She opened her mouth to ask Lucius a few more questions, but she couldn't seem to form them into words as if thinking some of them were silly.

"You want to know if I knew her, correct?" Lucius asked and a faint smile appeared on his face as she met his eyes and nodded. "Yes, I did, as I said the Negrands and Malfoys were allies for centuries and so Jasmine and I were friends during our time at Hogwarts and remained in contact afterwards, but she cut off all ties when she ran and I never spoke to her again, when I learned of her death through Draco's letters I was quite disturbed."

Kathleen dropped her eyes again and took in a shaky breath, tears falling from her eyes. "Wh-" She coughed trying to clear her throat, trying to keep her voice steady. "What was she like?"

Lucius seemed to let some of his cold exterior slip and he sighed as he saw the girl in front of him begin to break down. "She was much like you, or I assume your like her from most of the letters Draco sends me, I heard about your outbursts in the Great Hall ." He smiled as Kathleen hiccuped and blushed shamefully. "She was strong and beautiful inside and out, and had a temper that would rival a dragon's. When she made friends she would gain their loyalty without the use of her bloodline and was loyal in return, but if you crossed her she would not hesitate to exact punishment. She was like that for many years, but just before the time she disappeared she became more nervous and unsure, she was quiet and seemed to jump at the slightest noise. I could not understand this change and before I could find out what had happened to make her that way...she was gone." Lucius frowned.

"Even if I was little...I don't remember my mother that way..." Kathleen said quietly, listing a hand to her face to remove the tears that ran down her cheeks. "She was very kind and gentle, she was beautiful but I don't even remember a temper, she was extremely patient and even if she was busy she always had time to play a game with me, even if it was something silly like hide and seek." Kathleen explained, staring at her hands as she twisted them together. "Dad says I had her wrapped around my fingers." she looked back up at Draco's father to see him nod quietly before his eyes drifted to a clock on the wall above the fireplace before he stood, Kathleen rose from her chair as well.

"I am sorry Kathleen, but I have to cut this short. I still wish to catch the last half of the meeting so if you will excuse me." He lead her to the door and opened it letting her move out first before following shutting and locking the door behind him.

Kathleen nodded and bowed her head a little. "Thank you Mr. Malfoy, for your help." she said respectfully. When Lucius was out of view she sighed, her shoulder sagging at least she learned a few things about her families but it only gave her more questions, there was a lot of holes left in them, she knew she was an heiress now to two long lines of wizard families, she didn't need Lucius to explain that she figured that being the last of two bloodlines made her their heir, but she wasn't even sure if she was a Grendel, there was a gap there that she would have to figure out. The information on her Mothers family troubled her, she came from a bloodline of dark wizards, but her mother had been anything but dark.

"Excuse me miss?" A small voice asked o the right of Kathleen making her jump.

The young witch stared down at a small house elf with wide eyes, her heartbeat slowing down to a normal pace again as she stared into the blue tennis ball sized eyes. She removed the hand that had jumped to her chest and gave the creature a wary smile.

"I'm sorry, I did not notice you there." She apologized and frowned when the creature shifted nervously at her apology. Kathleen remembered what Harry had said about the way the Malfoys treated other creatures that were far from human, she even met Dobby when she had visited the kitchens looking for a midnight snack.

"Tilly should have announced her presence sooner Miss, it is Tilly's fault" the elf said meekly, distress pouring from her voice.

Kathleen looked around herself and even made sure the portraits were asleep before kneeling down beside the now shaking creature and put a finger to her lips. "Well, how about we keep it our little secret and say that you were a very good elf and didn't startle me and showed me to my room without even a hiccup...er...i assume that is why you are here." Kathleen had wanted to tell the elf she was nothing like the nasty Mr. Malfoy, but close study of the creatures and some advice from Dobby when she told him of her future trip made her think better of how she should act in this household.

Tilly seemed to brighten up just a little and nodded enthusiastically. "Yes Miss, Tilly is to show young mistress Negrand to her rooms."

Kathleen flinched at the last name, apparently while she was to stay here Mr. Malfoy would be trying to use her Mothers maiden name to his advantage. No wonder he had made Draco invite her to the party, she was his key into gaining more influence. The bastard had been playing her like a bloody harp back in his study. She clenched her fists and her eyes narrowed, she turned her head to glare in the direction Malfoy senior had left in. Her intense gaze suddenly dropped when she saw the creature beside her shift uncomfortably again.

"Is something wrong Miss?" she asked tentatively.

"Tilly, this is the only order I will ever utter to you, but if you have to around the older Malfoys you may continued to use my mothers last name, but, in my presence and in Draco's please call me Kathleen or Miss Grey...what ever makes you comfortable. Alright? If Draco says something about it, tell him it was an insistent order on my part." Kathleen put a gentle hand on the house elf's shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile, to let the creature know it was okay.

"Yes..Miss Grey." Tilly gave her a small nervous smile back.

Later that night Kathleen laid sprawled across emerald sheets of silk and cotton on a king sized fourposter bed made of an ebony wood, with matching dark emerald curtains. Mittens was cleaning himself at the end of her bed, making the best impression of a giant house cat. As she stared up at the ceiling, Kathleen tried to remember everything she could about her mother, they had pictures at home, but she found if she didn't look at them once and a while the image of her mother would slip from her mind, her face clouded in the memories the only clear pictures that remained were a pair of loving arms that would hold her close. The revelation that she couldn't even remember her voice just added to her depression.

She had skipped supper, telling Tilly, her personal House elf for the duration of her stay, to make an excuse for her. She didn't feel in the mood to sit at the same table as Lucius Malfoy, and she wasn't very hungry either.

Kathleen was so lost in her thoughts, she almost missed the soft knocking at her door. She quickly sat up and watched Mittens jump off her bed and dash to the door making his signature chuff while rubbing himself against the mahogany wood of the door.

"Come in." Kathleen called with a small smile, only a few people made Mittens so excited, and only one was at the manor. Her smile faltered when someone she wasn't expecting enter.

A woman opened her door and gracefully slipped inside before shutting the doors again with a soft 'click'. Kathleen tried to hide her disappointment, but she assumed she would have had to meet Narssica Malfoy sooner then later.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, I had been hoping to see you at dinner but you never showed up, Tilly said you were not feeling very well, I brought something for you and Mittens." the older woman said holding up a tray she had been carrying, Kathleen hadn't noticed it till now. The silver tray was crammed with food, A turkey sandwich with tomato and mayonnaise with a single leaf of lettuce in between two pieces of white bread. There was also a small dish of cherries and the rest of the tray was taken over by sugar cookies and two chocolate muffins and a full pot of tea.

"I don't think Mittens likes sugar cookies." Kathleen joked with a smile, the sight of the food lightening her disappointment, she was hungry.

Surprisingly Narssica laughed, she wasn't the cold woman Harry had described to her, and she was far more beautiful, her hair the same white blond as Draco's but her eyes were a brighter blue instead of piercing silver. She wore a light set of blue dress robes, another surprise, Kathleen was under the impression that the woman had always worn black, but surprisingly of all, instead of reprimanding Kathleen for being a bad guest and locking herself away in one of the guest rooms, she seemed to have an air of understanding around her.

"I can only carry a few things at once, but I haven't forgotten him." She said balancing the tray in one hand and pulled out her want, waving it with little effort as a silver bowl came levitating in behind her and landed softly beside Mittens, the contents of the large bowl looked suspiciously like finely cut raw beef. No wonder he had been excited when he heard the knock, he knew about the treat that came with it.

"If you don't mind me asking Mrs. Malfoy, but why carry it all the way up here?" Kathleen slid off her bed to take the silver tray from Narcissa.

"Please dear, call me Narcissa or Cissy, just because my husband is not the most warm of people, does not mean I cannot put forth the extra effort to make you feel welcome." released of her burden Narcissa walked over to the bed and sat down patting the place next to her and Kathleen happily followed, setting the try down in between then and plopping back down on to the soft mattress. With soft words and a wave of her wand two tea cups appeared before them, Narcissa took one and offered the other to Kathleen.

When Kathleen was into her second cup of tea and working on the other half of her sandwich, Narcissa took the moment to break the comfortable silence that had fallen between them. 

"I am pleased to know Draco has found a friend in you...i was a little worried about his choice company. Lucius seems to see his...acquaintances as a wise choice of allies, but I see it as a disaster waiting to happen. He has never written so many letters to me before and never about a girl." Narcissa sipped lightly at her tea and waiting for Kathleen's reaction, a small smile on her delicate face. "Tell me, what do you think of Draco?"

Kathleen blushed and set her empty tea cup down on the tray. "Do you want the honest answer, or a stream of words telling you how perfect he is?" Kathleen hoped she hadn't insulted Narssica, but she couldn't see herself trying to spout out a lie to this kind woman. To her relief the soft chimes of laughter spilled out from the older woman.

"If you please Kathleen, I would much rather hear the truth, I grow tired of the buttered up conversations many seem to think I like to hear."

"Okay, well he is flawed in a lot of ways, he's a prick to everyone including his so called 'friends', he's boastful and has enough pride for a whole army, he doesn't seem to look at the bigger picture of things outside his own views, acts like some kind of prince and thinks he is God's gift to the world." when Kathleen got started she couldn't stop, but when she saw no visible distaste in Narcissa face, only amusement, she continued. "But, underneath that mask...cause I have a feeling that all it is, he is sweet in his own ways, troubled but sweet. When I am upset or hurt he always seems to cheer me up, I love it when he puts on a real smile and when he laughs."

"Thank you Kathleen." Narcissa whispered softly with a small smile on her face.

"For what?"

"For showing my son it is alright to have a heart and to show who he really is. And for being truthful like I asked."

"Um...your welcome?"

Narcissa laughed again and the two spent a little while longer talking to each other until well into the night. Kathleen loved Narcissa, and even just meeting the woman she felt as if she had a mother again, it had been so long and she had been very young, but she missed having a mother deeply but with Narcissa there it felt as if a whole she didn't even realize she had began to sew back together.

**-_Day Two at Malfoy Manner_-**

"No." Kathleen stated bluntly trying hard not to glare at Lucius, so instead she kept her face blank.

"Draco has told us all about your wonderful voice, and I'm sure it would please everyone at the ball to hear it, many important friends of mine would be there and old friends of the Negrand family as well, surly they would love to know the heiress to such a noble bloodline holds a very beautiful talent." Lucius pushed, seeming determined to show off what he thought was his new prize.

Narcissa decided to enter the room then and save the girl.

"Lucius, I'm sure Kathleen would love to sing, but don't you think she should at least have a moment to think about it, this must be all very new and nerve wrecking to her." She said softly to her husband moving around him to hold Kathleen close to her.

"Of course Narcissa, I'm sorry Kathleen, but do think about it, I'm sure you would enjoy it as much as everyone else would." the older Malfoy said before giving her a small bow and walking out of the sitting room.

"I'm truly sorry Kathleen, he is never very good at seeing people as people but objects that can either raise himself up...or throw him down, I learned that the hard way after marrying him, it think the only good thing I got out of it was Draco, no matter how spoiled he is." Narcissa said quietly giving the girls shoulders a gentle squeeze.

Kathleen shook her head and leaned into the woman next to her. "It's okay, he is a business man...they are all the same magical or not. I understand."

"Speaking of the ball..." Narcissa said slyly a sneaky smile appearing on her face, it reminded Kathleen of her grandmothers smile when she was up to something. "have you thought about what you were going to wear?" she asked and Kathleen had a feeling, even if she had made a choice Narcissa was going to be involved.

"Er..no?" she answered nervously shifting away just slightly her eyes looking around for an escape.

"Wonderful! I'll send for one of my personal designers and we can start getting you ready for tomorrow!" She said releasing Kathleen to clap her hand excitedly a grin appearing on her face.

Kathleen paled, she was going to be turned into a doll for this wonderful mad-woman.

"Oh and maybe I can get in contact with Florance Riverwood, he has always done wonders with hair and makeup! Just you wait, by the time we are done, you'll have the men melt into nothing but puddles and the woman green with envy!" Narcissa was a ball of energy as she ranted on and all Kathleen could do was nod and blink dumbly at the ball of energy before her. She glance around and noticed Mittens had slunk off somewhere, he had been in the room a second ago.

Kathleen had managed to get away a few hours later and had found Draco in the Malfoy's massive library in the west wing. He was huddled in a emerald green comfy chair with a book on The History of Dark and Light Magic in his hands.

"Hey." She said softly so she didn't startled him. She smiled as he turned his head to her and grinned.

"Finally got away from my parents?" He asked moving over to the sofa next to the chair that rested in front of a cozy fire, which was the only light in the room at the moment, He patted the place next to him and Kathleen willingly flopped down beside him with a tired sigh.

"For now, Your Father is trying to show me off and your mother has me glued to her hip, I have to reattach myself later tonight so she can play dress up with me." Kathleen leaned against Draco's shoulder tiredly. She couldn't help but smile again when she heard him chuckle. "But I don't mind, as much as I fuss about the torture of dressing up, I like your mother a lot...i feel comfortable around her already."

"She has that effect, but I'm glad to hear it and glad she likes you as well, she is usually indifferent towards my friends."

"You can hardly call them Friends."

Draco shrugged making Kathleen's head shift with the movement of his shoulders.

"Figured out that egg thing yet?" he asked opening his book again, his eyes darting from side to side as he read.

"No..." Kathleen sighed in defeat. "Not yet."

"Did you try my suggestion?" he asked glancing down at her before going back to his book.

"I haven't gotten the chance."

"Try it tonight then, after Mother is done with you."

"I guess I could...i just hate that stupid thing."

Draco smirked a little and rolled his eyes at her.

Kathleen suddenly bolted upright as she heard her named called in a sing-song voice by Draco's mother and she groaned.

"You better go before she drags you out." Draco said the smirk still in place.

"Thanks for the help." Kathleen mumbled sarcastically.

"Anytime."

Twenty-two dresses later, Kathleen started to become very irritable as each dress was magically put on and taken off by a witch that stood next to Narcissa, who would shake her head no if she didn't like the dress or mutter a soft 'hm' if it was to be put in a pile for later. Kathleen meanwhile silently counted to ten as each dress passed, trying to stay calm and keep the roaring tigress inside at bay.

At the fifty-ish dress, she snapped.

"THATS IT!" She roared stopping down her right foot and ripped the last dress off of her, it was a sickly pink color with frills and beads and all kinds of gaudy materials, she stood only in a cream colored silk slip now that fell just below her knees. "I am sick and tired of this, I am tired of playing a doll, I am tired of standing here, I am tired of these dresses, and I am tired of everyone making choices for me when I can bloody well think for myself!" She shouted he chest rising and falling swiftly as she caught her breath after her outburst.

The Witch looked startled and frightened at he young woman before her, but Narcissa only smiled gently, and walked over and hugged Kathleen, which shocked the girl.

"Feel better?" the older woman asked softly.

Kathleen blinked and her heart flipped-flopped for a moment, she was suddenly three-years old again and had thrown a huge tantrum, she couldn't remember what it was about, but her mother had hugged her and stroked her hair gently. _'feel better?'_ the words echoed in her head. Kathleen couldn't help but start crying, leaning into Narcissa's embrace.

"Draco told me that your emotions were a little wild, but Jasmine was the same way, Lucius wasn't her only friend at the time. I knew her very well, I should have known better then to treat you like a doll, I just got a little excited." She spoke softly petting Kathleen's hair. Now she knew why she was so comfortable around this woman she barely met, Narcissa was almost exactly like the memories she had of her mother. Kathleen hiccuped and leaned away to wipe away her tears.

"Mama must have been the gentle woman she was because of you...Everyone tells me she was wild, but all I remember is someone just like you."

"Perhaps, I always acted like a mother I suppose. But she was gentle in her own ways as well, she must have wanted to raise you with soft hands and words instead of the harsh ones of her own mother."

Kathleen could only nod and suddenly grasped onto Narcissa and buried her face into the front of her dress robes and continued to sob, letting out all of her stress that had built up. She didn't notice when Narcissa sank to the floor cradling her, or when she waved the other witch out.

"Now, other then the dresses, what is really bothering you? I have a feeling Lucius is part of it."

Kathleen hiccuped again. "I-I feel like I'm being tossed and dragged around like a rag-doll by fate...First I find out I'm a witch four years late and thrown into this whole new world thousands of miles away from my dad, then told I am part of two important bloodlines, then expected to flaunt myself around the day after and act like some long-lost princess when I have the grace and poise of a dead frog. And that stupid egg is driving me up a wall!"

Narcissa laughed and gave the girl in her lap a squeeze. "It's okay Kathleen, you don't have to be a princess if you don't want to be one. But you don't have the grace of a dead frog dear, you are a wild and graceful girl that just needs a little reassurance and a gentle hand."

"Thanks...i guess."

Narcissa nodded and then released Kathleen, helping her stand again. "Now, would you like to pick the dress, I'm sure we can managed without Evelyn this time."

Kathleen nodded and out of the pile of un-rejected dresses she managed to find one she had liked the most.

"Good choice." Narcissa banished the others and smiled at Kathleen as the girl beamed up at her, feeling much better now she had been able to release her stress.

By the time Kathleen was able to take a bath, it was well into the afternoon, after picking out her dress she had sat down to lunch with the Malfoy family, she didn't speak much, and the others didn't seem like the talkative type at meal times. After lunch she re-joined Draco in the library, while he read she had started to practice various charms the Professor Flitwick had assigned her and some she had read in a book from the Hogwarts library. After successfully turning Draco's hair different colors without him noticing and conjuring small shadow butterflies to fly around him, Kathleen became bored and Draco was so zoned out in his reading he never noticed the small magics she did.

She had left the library to Draco and went upstairs to her temporary bedroom and dug through her bag for the egg, she gently woke Mittens who was snoozing on her bed and led him into the bathroom attached to the room, it had been a while since her huge cub got to play in the water. The bathroom was huge as she suspected and matched the one that the prefects used in Hogwarts (she had gotten lost at some point and had stumbled across it in the first few months of her stay).

Once she was undressed and the large bathtub was full Kathleen slipped into the water with the egg.

"Come on Mittens, bath time." She cooed to her Tiger who stood at the edge and sniffed the water before easing himself down onto his belly and sliding off the tile into the warmth of the water. He began purring immediately, swimming around the tub happily.

While Mittens had his fun Kathleen stared at the egg, she was in the bath with it, but now what. She moved it around and pulled it under the water and then let go, but instead of floating like she thought it would, it sank to the bottom and when it hit, it opened up. Kathleen quickly raised her hands to her ears as she expected the shrieks to come out again, but nothing happened and she lowered her arms again, staring blankly at the wavering image of the egg near her feet.

"Okay...?"

With a puzzled look Kathleen tilted her head towards the water, she could hear something below the surface. It was coming from the egg, she knew it, but the sound was muffled. Taking a deep breath in Kathleen balled up and let herself sink to the bottom of the tub and opened her eyes to stare at the golden orb as a eerie voice spilled out of it.

_Come seek us where our voices sound,_  
><em>We cannot sing above the ground,<em>  
><em>And while you're searching ponder this;<em>  
><em>We've taken what you'll sorely miss,<em>  
><em>An hour long you'll have to look,<em>  
><em>And to recover what we took,<em>  
><em>But past an hour, the prospect's black,<em>  
><em>Too late it's gone, it won't come back.<em>

Kathleen burst through the surface of the water gasping for air and shaking her hair out of her eyes. She blinked the water away lifting a hand to wipe the water off her face before she thought about what she just heard. It was a very foreboding message that she had received clearly. Someone was going to take away something of hers, that she will miss dearly and if she couldn't find in in a hour, it would be lost forever. Her eyes flicked to Mittens as he climbed out of the tub and shook off his orange fur before proceeding to lick himself dry.

"Come seek us where our voices sound." she whispered and looked at the egg under the water, she had only been able to hear the voices beneath the surface of the water. "We cannot sing above the ground." it wasn't hard to figure out they were water creatures. "cannot sing..." her eye went wide and she dove back down to grab the egg before jumping out of the tub.

"Mermaids." Kathleen stated simply, standing next tot he chair Dracowas sitting in, in the library.

"Excuse me?" Draco asked blinking dumbly and set the, now closed, book in his lap.

"The next task...i think we have to get something back from the mermaids...er, are their mermaids in the lake?"

"Maybe, I mean if there is a giant squid, I'm sure there are other creatures like that too." Draco said with a thoughtful look. "What makes you think that is what is the net task is? Were you able to open the egg?"

"Yeah, I could only hear it underwater." Kathleen thought back to what she had heard and then repeated it for Draco, though her voice made it sound less eerie.

Draco listened and a frown came to him face. "I wonder what they will take."

"Something I'll sorely miss...it couldn't be something living, I mean that would just be cruel since I will lose it forever if I cant get it in an hour." Kathleen started to pace as she thought. What would she miss if it was taken? She didn't

have anything she was truly attached to that was inanimate.

"We'll you'll just have to wait and see what it is I guess. Oh, wait, if you have to retrieve it from the Merfolk...you'll have to go underwater right?" he asked, seeming to try to get a point across.

"Yeah? I mean I guess."

"How are you going to stay in the lake for an hour...its extremely deep and wide not to mention freezing."

"Oh right..." Kathleen stopped in her tracks and her shoulders slumped. "I'll figure something out I guess. I'll start looking up ideas in the Library when we get back to school."

"Good idea." Draco picked his book back up and continued reading glancing up as Kathleen stretched out on the couch for a nap.

-**-**_**Day Three at Malfoy Manner**_**-**

Kathleen sighed in defeat as she sat on a stool while Narcissa and her friend Florance fussed over what to do with her hair and what makeup they should use on her face. When Florance had first suggested cutting her hair a little Kathleen had flat out refused him, she treasured her hair and had vowed to never cut it again after an accident she had with bubble-gum when she was ten. Now the wizard circled her and hummed softly before grabbing her hair gently and conjured a brush to run through it till it was soft. If Kathleen had been a cat she would have purred loudly, the man had looked a bit intimidating, but he was soft-spoken and gentle.

His appearance had startled her, his black hair was long and spilled over his shoulders with two small braids on either side in the front. His eyes were dark blue and he had elegant features, in fact he was beautiful and Kathleen had blushed in embarrassment when she felt she had stared at him a bit longer then what was considered normal. He wore a simple white poets shirt under a black dragon hide vest and matching leather pants and knee-high riding boots.

"How about a simple French-braid, elegant but not extravagant. It would match you very well. " He asked Kathleen with a soft smile.

Kathleen couldn't help but blush again and nodded, feeling his fingers moving expertly through her hair and he weaved it together staring from the top of her scalp and working his way down. While he worked Narcissa decided to strike up a conversation.

"Any thought about singing tonight?" The older woman asked

"I don't know, I normally don't sing in front of people, I only did it for the first task because that was the only way to calm the dragon down." Kathleen tried hard not to shift in her seat as Florance worked on her hair, his hands now brushing in between her shoulder blades as he got farther down her long locks.

"I know, but I would love to hear your voice, and I'm sure Draco would enjoy it as well."

Narcissa had on a pleading look, like a child wanting a cookie before dinner, Kathleen couldn't deny her with a face like that. "Fine, I'll sing..."

"Oh good, everyone will be so pleased."

The party was dull, as they usually were. **Draco **watched as his Father and Mother wandered around the ball room talking to the other witches and wizards from various wizarding families that his Father had deemed good allies with Important bloodlines. Some of them made Draco nervous, it wasn't hard to spot dark wizards, in fact he wasn't sure there were any light wizards to be found here. The Minister was here at least with a few of his own personal guards it seemed, Draco had recognized the two next to the Minister, but he couldn't name them.

It seemed like forever before the ball room doors opened again. And when Draco turned around, he had to try hard to keep his composure, melting to the floor and embarrassing the Malfoy name in front of everyone in the room would be extremely vexing to his Father and could earn him a few bruises later.

Kathleen stood in the doorway, looking a little nervous as everyone stopped to look at her, a few faces looked like they had seen a ghost, especially Crabb and Goyle senior. Her dress wasn't as grand as the one she wore to the Yule Ball was, but somehow it was even more beautiful. It was a simple pearl green silk dress that trailed down to the floor with long sheer sleeves that ended just above her finger tips in an old medieval fashion, the fabric on the upper torso of the dress was a darker green with silver leaves and vines swirling in a delicate pattern around her upper chest. Her hair was in a simple braid and Draco couldn't tell if she was wearing any make-up or not, but he didn't mind she was beautiful without it, nothing like Pansy who always seemed to have to wear tons of it before she could be called 'pretty'.

He watched as she looked around timidly, wringing her hands together as she moved further into the ball room, she was looking around, and it took a moment before Draco realized she was looking for him. He set down his glass of punch on one of the buffet tables beside him and slipped his was through the crowds until he was in front of her. Immediately she looked relieved.

"Hi." Draco said giving Kathleen a soft smile.

"Hey...I was looking for you. Why is everyone staring at me?" She asked, her voice quiet. She must have been terrified inside, he had never seen this timid side of her before, she had faced a Dragon for Merlin's sake!

Draco glanced around and saw that a few witches and wizards kept glancing at her, but everyone had seemed to turn back to their conversations, especially now they had something to gossip about. "Don't worry about it, they just haven't seen someone as beautiful as you before." he reassured her, laughing a little as her face turned bright red and glared at him out of the corner of her eye. There was his Kathleen, only she could get mad at a compliment, even if it was true.

The two of them laughed and chatted for the next hour, but Draco's mood immediately dropped when his Father made his way over to them, his mother following quietly behind. Kathleen tensed beside him and he couldn't help but discreetly brush his hand against her in a type of reassurance. He was rewarded with her grabbing onto his hand and holding it in hers, he glanced at her and could see a mixture of unease and anger in her face, but when his Father was close enough to them it became emotionless. He gave her hand a light squeeze and she seemed to relax.

"Father" Draco said simply with a nod of his head. But Lucius ignored him, focusing on Kathleen instead. She didn't seem to like that, he could feel her hand grow warmer as her anger rose.

"Ah Kathleen-"

"Excuse me sir, but I believe Draco just greeted you, I am not an expert in the ways of a proper greeting, but I am sure that when someone greets you, you return it, especially if it's your son." Kathleen said stubbornly and Draco watched as his Fathers face twist into one of shock before it was wiped of all emotion and his eyes flickered to Draco who winced slightly, he would pay for this later he knew it, but he wasn't going to correct Kathleen, she wasn't his and he had no control over her, even if she had been his he wouldn't be able to control her, he excepted that just after she socked him in the face.

"That is true, forgive me Kathleen, I was just excited to see you finally out here, it was almost as if you decided not to come down at all." Draco couldn't hide his own shock, Kathleen's bloodline must have been extremely important to Lucius because he didn't even raise his voice at her for correcting him. When Kathleen didn't say anything Lucius continued his previous thought. "I hope you are prepared for tonight, everyone is pleased and excited to hear that the Heiress to the Negrand line will be giving us an example of your many talents."

"Yes, I am ready but I would like to enjoy the party a little longer before my performance." Draco winced as she held his hand a little tighter then needed as his Father mentioned the last name of Kathleen's mother.

"Of course. Later tonight then." with that, Lucius turned around and slipped back into the crowed, followed by Narssica. Draco sighed and ran his free hand through his hair not caring if it became a little messy.

"Sorry about my Father..." Draco apologized with a small apologetic smile.

"It's alright, you shouldn't have to apologize for him, his mistakes are not your own." Kathleen said quietly giving him a small smile back, she seemed to relax the farther she was away from Lucius.

_'He makes damn sure that I feel like they are though...' _Draco thought but didn't voice it to Kathleen, she should at least enjoy the rest of the night without something else to upset her about his father.

A comfortable silence fell between them as Draco and Kathleen browsed the buffet table for a few things to nibble on. He couldn't help himself as he watched Kathleen munch on a few chocolate covered strawberries, those must have been her favorites, thats all she ate at the Yule balls as well. When the band started to play a few waltzes Draco noticed that a few people started to dance around the ballroom and he turned to Kathleen and took the plate of strawberries away from her. She looked like she was about to protest but stopped when Draco moved in front of her with a small bow.

"Care to dance with me My Lady?" Draco asked with one of his famous Malfoy smirks. It turned into a grin when Kathleen giggled.

"If it pleases you My Lord." she replied taking his hand as he held it out to her.

Draco lead Kathleen around the dance floor, both of them keeping wonderful time with the music as they kept in pace with the adults who have practiced far longer. A few times Kathleen seemed unsure of what to do since she wasn't used to following a specific pattern without practicing first, but Draco was a very good lead and made sure she kept up. During one of the dances, Draco had managed to catch his Father's eye, the elder Malfoy seemed pleased about something but Draco didn't think about it to long before Kathleen drew his attention back.

Kathleen was tired by the time the last song ended and the Orchestra began to pack up their instruments near the end of the party. She had nearly forgotten about singing, until Narssica stood up onto the stage where the musician had been seated, and cleared her throat gaining everyone's attention.

"Thank you all for being here tonight, before you leave for the night, we have one last treat. The daughter of Jasmine Negrand is here tonight and we have asked her to share one of her many talents with us all. Kathleen, could you come up here please dear." Narcissa said looking directly at Kathleen with a gentle smile.

She blushed as everyone turned to stare at her, some in shock, others with passing interest. she heard a few whispers, but she was used to that now, what irritated her was not knowing what they were saying. Carefully she made her way up the steps of the stage and stood next to Narcissa who practically beamed before giving her a quick hug before moving off the stage and went around dimming the lights from the lamps, but somewhere there remained a light that focused on Kathleen. She wasn't going to question where the light was coming from, she was in a world of magic after all.

Everyone stared up expectantly at her, and Kathleen started to feel like this was a bad idea. Sure she was used to performing up on stage, but she had her father with her, and she never had to sing, just smile and look pretty as she was trapped inside a tight box and set on fire. Her eyes grazed the audience until she found a familiar face staring back at her, she locked onto the silver eyes and seemed to find herself again as she took a soft breath in and let her voice out.

"_Edelweiss, edelweiss  
>Ev'ry morning you greet me<br>Small and white  
>Clean and bright<br>You look happy to meet me_

_Blossom of snow  
>May you bloom and grow<br>Bloom and grow forever  
>Edelweiss, edelweiss<br>Bless my homeland forever_

_Small and white  
>Clean and bright<br>You look happy to meet me_

_Blossom of snow  
>May you bloom and grow<br>Bloom and grow forever  
>Edelweiss, edelweiss<br>Bless my homeland forever."_

She had closed her eyes at some point, but opened them again when the last verse came to a close, it wasn't a very long song, and hadn't been the one she intended to sing at first, but as her voice came out, it was what felt right. As she sang she seemed to recall an elderly man holding her close, she must have been very small because she was cuddled in his arms against his chest, she couldn't make out his face, but she remembered her Grandfather's voice singing to her. '_My little flower, little Edelweiss'_ she smiled as she remembered those words, it must have been her magic that helped her remember times she shouldn't being she must have been a baby when they were said, but it comforted her to know that she hadn't forgotten everything about her Papa.

**A/N And there you have it, Chapter Twelve! now I can move on to thirteen haha, sorry it took so long, trying to figure out what her dress would look like was killing me! Anyway please Review, it will help me with writing future chapters, if you want them done faster, I suggest you start giving out the feedback! Sorry if this chapter took so long and was just a filler, but it was an important one non the less. Anyway until next time!**

**~Taki-Sama**


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